U.S. Embassy in Jamaica continues support to Calabash International Literary Festival for 7th Consecutive Year
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Junot Díaz, author of Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize, the US National Book Critics Circle Award, among other notable prizes, will be one of five American authors and poet whose visit will be funded by the United States Embassy to attend the Calabash International Literary Festival, scheduled to take place in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, May 22-24.
The Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy has supported Calabash for seven consecutive years, since 2003. This year’s grant award to Calabash is valued at US$10,000 (J$883,000) with total funding to date close to US$50,000 (J$4.415 million).
U.S. Embassy’s Public Affairs Officer Patricia Attkisson (left) and co-founder of the Calabash International Literary Festival Justine Henzell sign a grant agreement valued US $10,000 ($J883,000) to fund the participation of five American authors and poet who will participate in Calabash, scheduled to take place in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth next month.
Patricia Attkisson, US Embassy Public Affairs Officer noted that the United States government is a proud supporter of excellence in the arts, both in the U.S. and around the globe, and that the embassy is happy to be a part of Jamaica’s unique showcase of literature at its best.
In accepting the grant, Justine Henzell, co-founder of Calabash International Literary Festival, stated that “the support that Calabash has received from the US Embassy has been unwavering and shows the commitment to freedom of expression and speech that is fundamental to the social fabric of both Jamaica and America.” She further noted that the vibrancy of the Jamaica culture is grounded in the freedom to tell all our stories in different media to all audiences that wish to listen and respond.
Other Americans who will be sponsored through the grant include actor, director, screenwriter, playwright and novelist Melvin Van Peebles; Robert Pinsky, former US Poet Laureate and founder of the Favorite Poet Project; writer Colum McCann and Selwyn Cudjoe, Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Since 2003, the U.S. Embassy has funded the participation of over thirty US fiction writers and poets from diverse cultural and backgrounds, including Russell Banks, John Edgar Wideman, Elizabeth Alexander, Sonia Sanchez, Patricia Smith and many others.
For the first time this year and last, the embassy also hosted at its Liguanea location the annual Calabash Writers Workshops for aspiring young Jamaican fiction writers and poets, tutored by Calabash co-founders Colin Channer and Kwame Dawes, as well as US poet Gregory Pardlo
