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Hello there -- With regard to social commentaries ... Anything by Anthony Winkler (Jamaican, living in Atlanta), but particularly "Going Home to Teach" Kingston Publishers 1995, which, while making you cry with frustration, includes the funniest page ever written in the English language (you'll know it when you get there). His other works are just as worthwhile: "The Great Yacht Race" 1992 (for an example of pre-independence racial hilarity - does that make any sense?), "The Lunatic" 1987, "The Duppy" 1997, all published by Kingston Publishers. And "The Painted Canoe" published in 1986 by Lyle Stuart of New Jersey, and also published by the University of Chicago Press in 1989. In the U. of C.'s words: a rare weave of humor and sadness. If you can't find these in a library, go to www.jamaica-netlink.com/caribooks Do you know "Sonny Jim of Sandy Point" by S. B. Jones-Hendrickson, St. Kitts-born, currently living in St. Croix? It was published by the Eastern Caribbean Institute of St. Croix in 1991 and should be available. Not so laden with humor, but outstanding works from other islands are: anything by John Wickham of Barbados, who is generally out-of-print, but whose "World Without End" (New Beacon Books 1982), if you can find it, is 134 pages of being there. "The Boy from Popeshead" by Rev. Leon H. Matthias, Antigua born, but possibly living now in St. Croix. I believe it was published by the Reverend himself, Frederiksted, St. Croix, USVI. "Dusk to Dawn" (Kingston Publishers 1995) by Hugo Vanterpool of Tortola. And, no humor here but, how about something like Edwidge Danticat's "Krik? Krak!" (Soho Press, New York)? Her stories of Haiti could make Kincaid's "Small Place" seem a little like heaven. With regard to the Naipaul quote: coincidentally, I was at a talk by George Lamming about two weeks ago at the University of Illinois-Chicago. I believe he referred to that very quote while speaking of Voudou's Ceremony of the Souls, which he characterised as a sort of collaboration between the dead (the slave dead, suffering dead?) and the living, on the "settling of the matter." He said the dead are dependent on the living for liberation, and the living are dependent on the dead for forgiveness. As he spoke of this drama of redemption and cleansing, he used the words "imaginative imperative for the Caribbean artist." My understanding (whether I understood him correctly or not, I don't know) was that the Caribbean writer should look to and address the soul-searching turmoil of Haiti to contribute to the "settling of the matter." I am a scholarly layperson, not a professional, and hope I have not misrepresented Mr. Lamming's words. These are my own thoughts which I noted while listening to him. I guess I haven't answered your question ... Ask Mr. Lamming? Hope any part of this helps. Janice Buslik Virgil Storr wrote: > > 1. where/when did naipaul say "the future of the Caribbean is Haiti". I seen > it quoted abunch of places without anyone giving it a hard reference (i.e. > one i could track down)???? > > 2. i'm also trying to find works by authors from other west indian islands > like kincaid's "a small place". by "like", i mean social commentaries, laden > with humor, written like fiction. the closest i've found is (Bahamian) > Miecholas-Glinton's "99 cent breakfast". Any others???? > > thankyou for your help, > kihika > > ************************************************************************ > Virgil Henry Storr > Department of Economics > George Mason University > Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 > Email: [log in to unmask] > ************************************************************************ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%