Nicholas Laughlin
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I was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and am still here; I'm the editor of The Caribbean Review of Books, a bimonthly magazine; co-director of the contemporary art space Alice Yard; and programme director for the Bocas Lit Fest. I'm a writer with a particular interest in Caribbean literature and art. I've been blogging (sometimishly) at nicholaslaughlin.blogspot.com since October 2002, despite my occasional technophobe twinges; and more recently at Antilles, the CRB blog. You can find out more about me at my home page, nicholaslaughlin.net.
Latest posts by Nicholas Laughlin
21 December 2011
Jamaica
The ARC magazine blog reports on a recent panel on art publishing in the Caribbean, hosted by the National Gallery of Jamaica, with video clips of the discussion.
Cuba
Havana Times asks whether the Havana Film Festival has strayed from its original ideals — “Much has happened since its inception in 1978, since which time its revolutionary and emancipatory ideals have faded considerably” — and wonders if the festival could once more “encourage revolutionary and popular cinema (in the best sense of those words), not one that was for the enlightened elites or the urbane educated middleclass.”
20 December 2011
Cuba
The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and the succession of his son prompts Generation Y to think about the Cuban government's own succession plans. “The dauphin over there is named Kim Jong-un; perhaps soon they will communicate to us that over here ours will be Alejandro Castro Espin.”
Cuba
Cuba has a longstanding debt to Russia of 20 million Soviet rubles — a currency that no longer exists. Machetera asks: “how and when do you decide what a vanished currency is really worth?”
Jamaica
UK-based Jamaican writer Kei Miller muses on the consequences of poets joining the academic world. “Poetry is certainly not known for its plain-spoken-ness and in fact is accused, just as much as the academy, for its obscurity and its pretensions. And this is as it should be!”
Barbados
The Bajan Reporter posts a tribute to his late father, the journalist and adman Desmond Bourne. “It was not that my father never stood on convention, he acknowledged where he felt it was expected – such as Diplomats and & Ceremony – but for the most part he ignored it….”
Barbados
Barbados Underground offers an analysis of the “headache” created for Prime Minister Freundel Stuart by a now notorious leaked letter allegedly demonstrating his party's doubts about the PM's leadership. “Whatever he does must positively feed public perception that he is in charge of his men. The question is: will it be enough to sway the voter?”
19 December 2011
Jamaica
Idle Yout Speeks asks if he should bother to vote in Jamaica's upcoming general election. “I blame my reluctance … on a deep rooted fear that stemmed from the more violent days of Jamaica's more violent election campaigns,” he writes. “I see some subtle differences in the parties but ultimately they are (in my eyes) all the same.”
Cuba
Cuban writer Leonardo Padura has won the 2011 Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe, reports Repeating Islands. The prestigious prize for works of Caribbean literature in French, founded by the late writer Edouard Glissant, was awarded to the French translation of Padura's novel El hombre que amaba a los perros (The Man Who Loved Dogs).
Barbados
Barbados-based B.C. Pires posts his reflections on the death of writer Christopher Hitchens: “for all his flaws … worth a few hundred pastors and priests to me, perhaps a few thousand.”
I want to ask, there is not software to change from letter to letter Latin...