Melis­sa Doughty

The Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) yes­ter­day launched the sev­enth an­nu­al One Book, One Com­mu­ni­ty pro­gramme, which this year will fea­ture Bev­er­ley-Ann Scott's nov­el The Stolen Cas­cadu­ra. The book was cho­sen on the ba­sis of avail­abil­i­ty, themes, abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate dis­cus­sion and age-ap­pro­pri­ate­ness for stu­dents 16 years and old­er.

NALIS' ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Lu­cia Phillip ex­plained the se­lec­tion cri­te­ria. Scenes from Scott's book were drama­tised by the Carnegie Free Li­brary Dra­ma Group. In her ad­dress, Scott said: "I want­ed to write about all of the good things about Trinidad and To­ba­go, such as crick­et (at the time they were win­ning), our hos­pi­tal­i­ty and friend­li­ness. I want­ed to cel­e­brate our mul­ti­eth­nic so­ci­ety.

"But I al­so want­ed to write on the neg­a­tive things: Aliyah John­son, young men liv­ing on card­board box­es and not reach­ing their full po­ten­tial. When drug ad­dic­tion leads young men and women to va­grancy, when de­cen­cy in pub­lic life seems lost."

She said af­ter 50 years of in­de­pen­dence, the coun­try seemed far off the mark.

"In the book, I deal with is­sues fac­ing us as a peo­ple and I hope that re­flec­tion leads to di­a­logue. That the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness is awak­ened," she said. She urged stu­dents present to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T and to be their broth­er's keep­er. She gave the ex­am­ple of her fa­ther-who was blind and to whom the book is ded­i­cat­ed-who did not al­low his dis­abil­i­ty to de­ter him.

Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Em­bau Mo­heni de­vi­at­ed from his pre­pared speech and in­stead ded­i­cat­ed his ad­dress to the au­thor. "It is an emo­tion­al mo­ment for me," he said. "I feel the pas­sion in her for her coun­try. I am pleased and joyed by the great pow­er, tal­ent and po­ten­tial of our coun­try."

Scott, from Mara­bel­la, at­tend­ed St Joseph's Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do and St Stephen's Col­lege. She has a BSc in in­for­ma­tion sys­tems man­age­ment from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and stud­ied med­i­cine at Our La­dy of Fa­ti­ma Uni­ver­si­ty, Mani­la.