Current Penn State Laureate Shara McCallum, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, has been awarded the prestigious silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica.
Fortune with black gold …a writer s explosive love letter to Trinidad cnc3.co.tt - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cnc3.co.tt Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Coming soon is a new novel,
Fortune (Peepal Tree Press, 2021), by Irish-Trinidadian author Amanda Smyth.
Description: Eddie Wade has recently returned from the US oilfields. He is determined to sink his own well and make his fortune in the 1920s Trinidad oil-rush. His sights are set on Sonny Chatterjee’s failing cocoa estate, Kushi, where the ground is so full of oil you can put a stick in the ground and see it bubble up. When a fortuitous meeting with businessman Tito Fernandez brings Eddie the investor he desperately needs, the three men enter into a partnership. A friendship between Tito and Eddie begins that will change their lives forever, not least when the oil starts gushing. But their partnership also brings Eddie into contact with Ada, Tito’s beautiful wife, and as much as they try, they cannot avoid the attraction they feel for each other.
Debbie Jacob (
Fortune (Peepal Tree Press, 2021).
The best books make the most difficult subjects for reviews. Almost anything said about the book feels like divulging secrets, and
Fortune, Amanda Smyth’s latest novel, has secrets at every turn.
This we know for sure: Trinidadian-born Eddie Wade, who migrated to the US, where he gambled on finding oil wells, has returned to his roots with a mission to discover oil around 1928, when witchbroom is destroying cocoa. Before the devastating disease, Trinidad had been the third-largest cocoa producer in the world, producing 20 per cent of the world’s cocoa.
Oil is a dangerous business that suits Eddie’s adventurous nature and penchant for courting danger in work and his personal life. Now, like Apex and other oil companies, Eddie pursues Sonny Chatterjee, a failing cocoa farmer rooted in tradition, and his father’s cocoa plantation. Sonny’s land oozes oil.
L-r: Amina Atiq (credit: Brian Roberts), Jack Nicholls, Saiqa Khushnood, Malika Booker
The Poetry Society presents a special event celebrating the Peggy Poole Award featuring readings from the 2019 Peggy Poole Award winner
Saiqa Khushnood, alongside her mentor through the Award, acclaimed poet
Malika Booker. The Peggy Poole Award is a talent development award recognising emerging writers in the North West of England.
The Peggy Poole Award readings are supported by guest performances from other writers based in the North West: Manchester-based poet and playwright
Jack Nicholls, who won third prize in the National Poetry Competition 2020 and Liverpool-based poet, playwright and performance artist