From yesterday..
Before entering the 20th century, let us take a step back in time, history is too beautiful. From the passage of Christopher Columbus in 1492 to the independence granted by Great Britain in 1973, the Bahamas was the focus of a double claim by the Spanish and the English. The latter, in order to assert their position, offered it in the 17th century to eight lords who had supported King Charles II during the Restoration. They will never set foot there and will have to give up their property - in return for payment - when the new sovereign, James II, comes to power. The matter remained there until, in 1714, George I, in his turn in charge of the Royal Crown, decided to install a governor on the site. His choice was Woodes Rogers, a privateer and writer in his spare time. In his autobiographical story A crusing voyage round the world, Rogers tells how he rescued Alexander Selkirk in 1709, for example, who had been landed alone on the island of Más a Tierra in the Chilean archipelago Juan Fernández four years earlier. A story that inspired another author, Daniel Defoe, to write a famous novel, Robinson Crusoe. Let's close this chapter, because right now Woodes Rogers has his work cut out for him. The archipelago is indeed prey to pirates, in its waters sail Jack Rackham, who will inspire Hergé to create the character Red Rackham, and his no less legendary crew to which belong two women who will also become paper heroines, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Both have the distinction of having pretended to be men in order to embrace their careers, and they had absolutely nothing to envy them when it came to bravery. They will take their place in Mireille Calmel's two-volume novel, Lady Pirate, to be published by XO. The story ended with the death of the forbans and if the Bahamas then witnessed other conflicts, only its 19th century inspired once again a French writer, Maurice Denuzière, who set up a trilogy bearing the name of the archipelago. In this trilogy, Charles Ambroise Desteyrac arrives on the spot to build a bridge. Although he falls madly in love with a beautiful half-breed woman whom he marries, he is also confronted with the evolution of societal issues as a direct consequence of the American Civil War. This great romantic fresco, rich in passions, therefore forgets nothing of the historical reality.
...to today
With the century was born in Trinidad on May 4, 1900, a woman who would have a major influence on Bahamian culture, Meta Davis Cumberbatch. She settled in the archipelago with her husband in 1926 and quickly became involved in political issues, firstly racism, which was far from being resolved, and then women's rights. At the same time, she endeavoured to highlight the local intangible heritage by initiating the Festival of Arts and Crafts in Nassau, contributed to its development by promoting drama and piano lessons, and enriched it through her own musical and poetic works, such as her poem A Child of nature (Negro of the Caribbean). This commitment led her to become a Mother of Arts and was hailed by the Queen of England, who made her a member of the Order of the British Empire during her visit in 1966. Three years later, an atypical writer arrives in the Bahamas, Canadian but English by birth, a former member of the Royal Air Force, Arthur Hailey, who will excel in the art of the catastrophic novel, the most famous of which - Airport - will be adapted for the cinema in an eponymous film starring Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin. Despite its immense success, it will sell millions of copies in many languages, its titles - Detective, News, The Fate of a Woman, Bank... - are now out of print in their French translation.
At the turn of the century, a particularly fertile native generation appears. Thus, Telcine Turner-Rolle (1944-2012) was the voice of the students she welcomed during her creative writing courses, but also published a collection of poems for children, Song of the Surreys, and made a name for herself in the field of theatre. She is the author of the University of the West Indies award-winning play Woman Take Two, and will be training as a director with the Bahama Drama Circle. Winston Saunders, President of the Dundas Center for the Performing Arts from 1975 to 1998, and an actor and playwright celebrated for his plays, including Them and You can lead a horse to water, is in the same milieu. He was the husband of Gail North-Saunders, who created the National Archives and wrote books on Bahamian history, and was, like Meta Davis Cumberbatch, honoured with the Order of the British Empire in 2003. As for Marion Bethel, born in 1953, she has published as far away as the United States, where she is included in poetic anthologies. In addition to her collections, including Guanahani and Bougainvillea Ringplay, she finds time to take the camera and was awarded for her documentary Womanish Ways, about Bahamian women's right to vote. Finally, Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, who was born in 1950 on Cat Island, was the first winner of the Bahamas Cacique Award for Writing in 1998. She has been very active in the creation of the Cultural Studies Association, edited the magazine Yinna and co-founded the Guanima Press publishing house with her husband Neko. Their publications reflect the strength of a literature in the making and their love for their country.
