GREAT BAY/MARIGOT:--- The 19th annual St. Martin Book Fair opens at the Chamber of Commerce Building in Spring Concordia, Marigot, Thursday, June 3, at 5 PM, said Shujah Reiph, coordinator of the lit fest.
Deborah Drisana Jack will deliver the keynote address. In her speech, the St. Martin author and critically rising international visual artist will discuss “The Cure,” the festival’s theme.
Jack is also an Associate Professor of Art at New Jersey City University, USA. The book fair program booklet is available at facebook.com/stmartin.bookfair.
The island-wide St. Martin Book Fair is using the venue and virtual platforms for its opening program, which includes the guest speaker, poetry recital, new books, and the ribbon-cutting ceremony. COVID-19 protocols will be observed, said Reiph.
The always-stylish Literary Evening on Friday will be Internet broadcast only, starting at 8 PM on Zoom with some 14 novelists and poets, said Reiph.
The Literary Evening audience will view at home the recital of guest writers from Canada, Jamaica, St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Switzerland, and Hong Kong among other places, at facebook.com/stmartin.bookfair and facebook.com/HNPbooksauthors.
The “main book fair day” workshops at USM and the closing ceremony at Dutch Quarter Community Center, both on Saturday, will also go venue and virtual, said Reiph.
Reiph is calling June 4 the “Virtual Friday” because in addition to the Literary Evening there is an exciting set of “Interviews, presentations of new books” scheduled from morning to early afternoon.
The interviews and presentations of Caribbean and USA authors will take place from 10 AM to 2 PM, live and taped on the Facebook pages of St. Martin Book Fair and House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP), said HNP president Jacqueline Sample.
Sample is scheduled in a 1 PM discussion with David Walker and Kwame Anderson, the author and illustrator of The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History (2021), at facebook.com/HNPbooksauthors.
The annual 8 PM venue programs of Thursday and Saturday will start at 5 PM this year. The 5 PM start will allow attendees “time to enjoy exciting speakers, poetry reading, exhibition of new books, and get home safely before 8 PM” – due to the 8 PM-to-6 AM COVID-related curfew in effect in the north of the island, said Reiph.
The highlight of the annual Closing Ceremony is the “Main Book Launch” on Saturday, June 5, at 5 PM. The new book that St. Martin Book Fair-goers will get first dibs on is África en mi piel / Africa in My Skin / L’Afrique dans la peau by Rafael Nino Féliz.
The poetry collection is called “provocative” because of its title, cover imagery and content relative to national culture and identity discussions and realities in the writer’s homeland. Féliz is a Dominican Republic academic, poet, essayist, and author.
Fabian Adekunle Badejo, the author representing St. Martin writers at the three-day lit fest is the closing ceremony guest speaker. His task will be to introduce Féliz’s trilingual edition of Africa in My Skin, the first book published here by HNP in 2021.
The English, Spanish, and French volume of África en mi piel / Africa in My Skin / L’Afrique dans la peau is available at Van Dorp, Arnia’s, and Internet bookstore SPDbooks.org, said Sample.
