SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Au­thor and ed­u­ca­tor Ian Isidore Smart re­cent­ly launched The Caribbean Re­nais­sance and Car­ni­val at NALIS, Port-of-Spain.

The book is a trib­ute to com­pos­er, mu­si­cian, artist and ed­u­ca­tor David Booth­man.

In the fore­word, Smart said he was in­spired to work from Booth­man’s idea of the Caribbean Re­nais­sance, which he pre­sent­ed some 40 years ago.

Booth­man had said then: “Manuel Za­p­a­ta Olivel­la de­clared that ‘Améri­ca,’ that is to say ‘The Amer­i­c­as’, can be deemed to be a prod­uct, ‘Made in the Caribbean.’ Manuel was a na­tive of Co­lum­bia, dis­tinc­tive­ly, Caribbean re­gion; and for sev­er­al years he served as the chargé d’af­faires of his coun­try’s em­bassy in Port-of-Spain.”

The book is al­so in ho­n­our of Booth­man’s late broth­er, mu­si­cian Roger Booth­man.

Smart de­liv­ered a rous­ing au­thor talk and guest speak­ers were Eliz­a­beth Den­nis, Make­da Dyese, Li­onel Re­my, Dr Gary Garia and Dr God­frey St Bernard.

The au­thor’s sib­lings, Ca­r­ole, An­tho­ny, Wayne, Mar­guerite, Bri­an, Maria, Allyson and Bev­er­ly, al­so shared in the mo­ment with spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests.

Ian Isidore Smart has writ­ten more than two dozen books.

The 167-page book was pub­lished in the Unit­ed States by Orig­i­nal World Press and is avail­able at Met­ro­pol­i­tan Book Sup­plies Ltd.