The Nature Island Literary Festival and Book Fair will be holding a book exchange at Portsmouth market this Saturday, 16 July, from 6.00am to 10.00am. This outreach programme on behalf of the Literary Festival will give an opportunity to people outside Roseau to hear about the festival, to exchange books and buy new and second-hand books. There will also be live poetry performances to hear while browsing the book selection.
With the slogan, “Bring a Book and Take a Book”, the organisers hope that people will enjoy this innovative book exchange. Sponsor of the event Papillote Press says: “We want people to bring books that they no longer want and find something new that they do want to read. If you bring one book, you take one book; bring five books, you take five books. It’s as simple as that.”
There will also be new and used books for sale, including those from Papillote Press. A special offer on the day: buy a Papillote Press book and get the children’s book, The Snake King of the Kalinago, absolutely free.
Local poets will be there, among them Kamesha Sylvester of Paix Bouche, Ameka Cognet and Gregory Rabess, performing their dynamic poems. There will also be an open mic for anyone who would like to bring a poem and perform their own work. Everyone is welcome.
Great to see this. Let’s hope Dominicans show up to it. If only there were many more such events going on in the island (and decent bookstores. Other islands have far, far better bookstores than we do). I also hope this spurs on people to head to the library in town, which is surprisingly well-stocked. Its collection is fairly haphazard, but you can still get some good material.
People need to read. Turn off the reality TV shows and soap operas and open up a great book. The surest sign that we are human is perhaps our ability to create and be affected by strange and wonderful art.