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That an ah black chinee yuh eh go see



Running my fingers along the spines of the newly placed, highly polished books of Borders, I imagine what it was like when they were being written. Did the author of "If Chins could Kill", have the same all consuming need to change mankind as Jane Austin did when she was writing "Pride and Prejudice"?

I have yet to find a great collection of West Indian authors on shelves here. Every now and then a random copy of one of Niapaul's books appears and I get thrills. But in no corner, not even in the well worn carpeted aisle of Foreign Publications, or even the weed induced coma aisle of Weird and Unknown Publications, will I find a beloved tale I long for. And it shits me to tears. Yes we are a million miles away from the Caribbean Sea, but if you can have a copy of Gun, With Occasional Music, why not some selections from Walcott or Kincaid? Because we black.. mother ass... wait I see Mandela's bio here though... so it must be because we blasted black!

I got this book once... OK i stole it.. called On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows by Neil Bissondath. I call it an unknown gem, because I like to think very few know of it. And every time someone says to me why don't you write a book, I think of this little gem and how much it affected my view of Trinidadian authors. With greats like Naipaul, how can anyone hope to compare? It seems many can.

So I'll continue to haunt the aisles of bookstores wherever I go, on the small chance I get that sudden bolt of elation I felt when I saw Magic Seeds cleverly placed between Gardening for the Hicks and A Mountain of Morons, every once in ah Trini moon.

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