RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

In the midst of the gloom of the pan­dem­ic, one T&T writer has found rea­son to cel­e­brate. Bren­da Mo­hammed re­ceived the Prashamshith Pathr (Cer­tifi­cate of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion) from one of the world’s most ac­tive writ­ers’ fo­rum, Mo­ti­va­tion­al Strips, and the In­di­an gov­ern­ment’s most re­spect­ed lit­er­ary in­sti­tu­tion, Gu­jarat Sahitya Acad­e­my. It was award­ed to 350 promi­nent writ­ers from 80 coun­tries as In­dia marked its 74th In­de­pen­dence Day on Au­gust 15.

It’s a phe­nom­e­nal achieve­ment for a woman who was bat­tling ovar­i­an can­cer 15 years ago. Forced to seek med­ical help abroad, Mo­hammed trav­elled to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi Sylvester Can­cer Cen­tre for surgery and chemother­a­py. Not on­ly did she ful­ly re­cov­er and was able to re­turn to her job at Re­pub­lic Bank but that jour­ney shaped every­thing she did af­ter that.

As a can­cer sur­vivor, many who were ail­ing sought her ad­vice en­cour­ag­ing her 2013 book I Am Can­cer Free. It be­came very pop­u­lar among those fight­ing the dis­ease.

“That gave me the en­cour­age­ment to write more books,” Mo­hammed said.

That’s ex­act­ly what she did. To date, she has writ­ten 27 mul­ti-genre nov­els climb­ing the lad­der at var­i­ous promi­nent writ­ers groups around the globe.

A year af­ter join­ing the Lit­er­ary Fo­rum, Mo­ti­va­tion­al Strips, the world’s most ac­tive writ­ers’ fo­rum with writ­ers from 163 coun­tries and month­ly vis­i­tors cross­ing 7.3 mil­lion, she was ap­point­ed Re­gion­al Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions. In Oc­to­ber 2018, she was ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Mem­ber of the World High­er Lit­er­ary Aca­d­e­m­ic Coun­cil of World Na­tions Writ­ers’ Union.

Her Prashamshith Pathr award made head­lines in sev­er­al news­pa­pers around the world.

“I was de­light­ful­ly sur­prised when I saw my name on the list of awardees. This is not just a pre­mi­um award for me, but more than that, I val­ue it as the suc­cess of Trinidad and To­ba­go writ­ers,” she said.

Founder of Mo­ti­va­tion­al Strips, Shi­ju Pal­lit­hazheth said it was “a hap­py mo­ment to see Trinidad and To­ba­go shin­ing in the world lit­er­ary map and Bren­da Mo­hammed crowned as its lit­er­ary gem.”

While it maybe the high­light of her writ­ing ca­reer, it cer­tain­ly isn’t her first award. In Jan­u­ary, the Vista­bel­la res­i­dent was in­duct­ed in­to The In­die Au­thors Hall of Fame in the Unit­ed States —an es­tab­lish­ment for self-pub­lished au­thors who have achieved fame. In De­cem­ber 2018, she was award­ed the World Lau­re­ate in Lit­er­a­ture by World Na­tions Writ­ers’ Union. On Au­gust 31, 2019, Mo­hammed was ho­n­oured by the Sey­chelles Gov­ern­ment Ac­cred­it­ed Lit­er­ary So­ci­ety [ LLSF] for her con­tri­bu­tion to world po­et­ry, cre­ativ­i­ty, and writ­ing ex­per­tise.

Her gen­res in­clude mem­oirs, sci­ence fic­tion, ro­mance, self-help, mys­tery, chil­dren’s books, and po­et­ry. In fact, her self-help book, How to Write for Suc­cess, be­came an im­por­tant guide for new and as­pir­ing au­thors. It re­ceived a five-star re­view and a five-star seal from Read­ers Fa­vorite one month af­ter pub­li­ca­tion. It al­so won the gold award in the cat­e­go­ry non-fic­tion in Con­nec­tions EMagazine Read­ers’ Choice awards 2019 and a sil­ver medal for sec­ond place in all gen­res.

It would seem that Mo­hammed doesn’t need any fur­ther in­spi­ra­tion with so many awards and ac­co­lades be­stowed on her but she says: “This award has giv­en me en­cour­age­ment to do more work in the field of lit­er­a­ture that will ben­e­fit the world at large.”

Now, as great T&T writ­ers such as VS Naipaul, CLR James and Earl Lovelace have done in the past, she wants to cre­ate lit­er­a­ture as a form of tourism for this coun­try.

“Al­though this is a lit­er­a­ture award, I see this as a way of boost­ing tourism in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Mo­ti­va­tion­al Strips is the world’s most ac­tive writ­ers’ fo­rum and has writ­ers from 163 coun­tries with month­ly vis­i­tors cross­ing 7.3 mil­lion. All eyes are now fo­cused on Trinidad and To­ba­go and when­ev­er the pan­dem­ic ends, I hope we will see a flux of vis­i­tors to this coun­try.”

Though the Prashamshith Pathr award is her crown­ing achieve­ment thus far, it is by no means the fi­nal chap­ter in Bren­da Mo­hammed’s sto­ry.