Cherisse Moe

Writ­ers don't of­ten get recog­nised for their craft. But on May 25, nov­el­ist Ra­bindranath Ma­haraj re­ceived the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) In­di­an Ar­rival Day Award for his work. The an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny and din­ner was held at the Crowne Plaza, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Ma­haraj's award was over­due. The Trinidad-born Ma­haraj has been a fic­tion writer for the last 25 years and has eight pub­lished books on his shelf. His nov­els and short sto­ries are set in Trinidad and Cana­da. Ma­haraj prefers short sto­ries though, be­cause they are "eas­i­er to write." They in­clude: The Book of Ifs and Buts-nine sto­ries that main­ly deal with the ex­pe­ri­ences of eth­ni­cal­ly In­di­an Trinida­di­an men who have im­mi­grat­ed to Cana­da. And The In­ter­lop­er-sto­ries high­light­ing the whirl­wind of emo­tions felt by many im­mi­grants who left their home­lands in search of a bet­ter life.

Re­ceiv­ing the ac­co­lade for his con­tri­bu­tions, he says, points to­ward a greater recog­ni­tion for lo­cal writ­ers in the fu­ture. "Writ­ers al­ways feel a bit of more sat­is­fac­tion to be recog­nised by their home coun­tries, be­cause it's there that re­al­ly shaped you as a writer and gave you the ma­te­r­i­al with which to write your ear­ly books," he said. "I went to Rio Claro Hin­du and Robert Vil­lage Hin­du schools, so get­ting the award from the SDMS was a good feel­ing. "The fact that they de­cid­ed to recog­nise a writer is al­so sig­nif­i­cant." Al­though Ma­haraj, 57, has on­ly just been re­ward­ed for his work in T&T, he's been hailed for his tal­ents in Cana­da, where he has lived for the past 20 years. He's re­ceived the City of Toron­to Book Award (2011) and the Tril­li­um Book Award (2010) for his nov­el The Amaz­ing Ab­sorb­ing Boy. The nov­el, which ref­er­ences com­ic books and su­per­heroes through­out, tells the touch­ing sto­ry of a 17-year-old Trinida­di­an boy named Samuel who is sent to live with his fa­ther in Cana­da af­ter his moth­er died. Samuel then em­barks on a quest to find him­self and ex­plore what Toron­to has to of­fer. Li­brar­i­an Deb­bie Ja­cob is a fan of the nov­el and of Ma­haraj's writ­ing.

Ja­cob, al­so a T&T Guardian colum­nist, de­scribes Ma­haraj as "my favourite writer of his gen­er­a­tion." "His abil­i­ty to cap­ture the whole struc­ture and feel of a com­ic in a nov­el form is just bril­liant. I have fol­lowed his stuff from the be­gin­ning," she said. "The way that he cap­tures the ex­pe­ri­ence that most of us have in the world who are strug­gling with more than one cul­ture is bril­liant. Oth­er writ­ers have done that ad­mirably well too, but it's al­ways the feel­ing that it's a Trinida­di­an try­ing to deal with his 'Trinida­di­aness,' where­as Ra­bindranath makes it a uni­ver­sal ex­pe­ri­ence. "Any­body from any cul­ture who has made his home in an­oth­er place can re­late to it."

Sev­er­al of Ma­haraj's books have al­so been short-list­ed for the Rogers Writ­ers' Trust Fic­tion Prize, the Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers' Prize (Cana­da and Caribbean re­gion), and the Chap­ters/Books in Cana­da First Nov­el Award. Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the SDMS Sat­narayan Ma­haraj told the T&T Guardian that his or­gan­i­sa­tion was hap­py to award Ma­haraj, as he was "one of the best writ­ers of the Eng­lish lan­guage com­ing out of T&T." He added, "He has writ­ten a num­ber of books and the Cana­di­an crit­ics have de­scribed him as the VS Naipaul of Cana­da. We thought a writer with such recog­ni­tion should al­so be recog­nised in his na­tive land."

Full po­ten­tial

While Ma­haraj, the found­ing ed­i­tor of the Cana­di­an lit­er­ary jour­nal Lichen, ac­knowl­edges steps are be­ing tak­en to recog­nise writ­ers for their hard work, he says more needs to be done to en­cour­age young writ­ers to re­alise their full po­ten­tial. He's do­ing his part to help. Ma­haraj host­ed a cre­ative writ­ing work­shop at the Bo­cas Lit Fest, which took place at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain in April. The fes­ti­val is the brain­child of Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown and fea­tured 70 cel­e­brat­ed writ­ers and speak­ers from the re­gion and around the world. "I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised that there was an or­gan­i­sa­tion pro­mot­ing writ­ing which ac­tu­al­ly gained cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship. That's quite sub­stan­tial," Ma­haraj said. "The main rea­son I left Trinidad was to pur­sue this pro­fes­sion. We don't have the in­fra­struc­ture to take young writ­ers' work and trans­form it in­to pub­lish­able ma­te­r­i­al." He be­lieves the time has come for cit­i­zens to "change their mind­sets" to­wards writ­ing and lit­er­a­ture. "Trinidad is an oral so­ci­ety, where peo­ple tell sto­ries, so when peo­ple write a sto­ry it doesn't seem to be any­thing spe­cial. Peo­ple tend to feel that they can hear the same sto­ry in the rumshop or street cor­ner," he said, jok­ing­ly. "I'm not sure that peo­ple in au­thor­i­ty like writ­ers too much ei­ther. Maybe it's be­cause they tend to re­move the cur­tain...But writ­ers should be hon­est and put aside their pride to write."

No re­grets

Ma­haraj al­ways knew he would be­come a writer-even though his par­ents told him he should fol­low in his fa­ther's foot­steps and be­come a school prin­ci­pal. Ma­haraj taught Eng­lish for a while at Rio Claro Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and is now a part-time cre­ative-writ­ing lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to School of Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. To­day, Ma­haraj, the fa­ther of three, has "ab­solute­ly no re­grets." Al­ways work­ing on hon­ing his skills, he says his next project is an ex­cit­ing one. He is the cre­ative mind be­hind the up­com­ing film Crab­man and Sand­boy, which will be di­rect­ed by Trinida­di­an ac­tor Er­rol Sita­hal. It will be shot in Ma­yaro, and Ma­haraj says it will be a nar­ra­tive that rep­re­sents the rich his­to­ry of Trinidad.