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Sep 10, 2011 News
“The secret of my success as a writer is being an intense crafter of whatever fiction I put together. I believe in diligent crafting and plotting. I write the way I would put a model car that arrives in pieces: meticulously—weighing every word and making sure that every sentence makes sense—and that each sentence cut together, makes a fine paragraph…”- Harold Bascom
By Michael Jordan
If there is one local writer who could describe himself as an “all rounder” in the creative field, that person would be Harold Bascom.
Between 1986 and 1996 he published a novel ‘Apata: The story of a reluctant criminal’, wrote 15 plays (including two that won the Guyana Prize), illustrated children’s books and mounted an exhibition of folklore sketches and nude paintings that was highly praised by art critic Alim Hosein.
But Bascom dropped out of the spotlight some 15 years ago after migrating to the United States. That is, until last month, when, for the third time, he was awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature (Drama category); this time for his play ‘Blank Document.’
Though he wasn’t here to receive his award in person, Kaieteur News managed to interview him a few days after the award ceremony. Here, Bascom reveals the challenges of being a ‘Third World writer’ in North America, the craft of writing, and what inspired him to chose this career.
Kaieteur News (KN): How long have you been writing?
Harold Bascom (HB): The first thing I ever got published was a short story entitled, ‘Buddy Swaakoo and De Stars’. It was accepted by GBC (Guyana Broadcasting Corporation) and read by Allan A. Fenty. If you can remember what year that story was read—then that was the year I can say that I truly started writing. Of course as a teenager I harboured dreams of becoming writer and plotted novels since then.
KN: Where were you born?
HB: I was born in Vergenoegen—on the East Bank of Essequibo, to Harold and Lillian Bascom. In my second Guyana Prize-wining Play, Makantali, they were both enshrined into the plot.
KN: What were the forces that made you into a writer; and at what time in your life did you truly decide on this career?
HB: I can say that I was born into a creative family: my father—though an unlearned man—was very handy. He was a self-taught carpenter/cabinetmaker—a guy who, to me, could have done anything with his hands. I still remember him crafting an egg-stand with a rectangular block of wood as the standing base into which was glued the shape of a duck with an outstretched wing on either side; and on those wings were holes to hold standing eggs. He even made a kerosene chandelier out of multiple brass lamps.
My big brother Wilbert who used to be the General Manager of the Guyana National Cooperative Bank was an artist in his own right; I still remember the wooden clipper he made and had mounted on a living room wall of our house in New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop. My bigger brother Kenneth always drew also. And then there were the stories that my mom and dad told.
In turn I guess I always wanted to tell stories too. As a preteen I remember plotting novels; and this was largely due to being influenced by a friend in the village who wanted to be a writer—his name was Rudolph Thomas; we called him ‘Thomo’. Thomo was an introvert and so was I; and we would take these long walks to the sea wall to observe nature and all along he would talk and talk about his love of this girl and the poems he wrote for her and the novel he was working on in which she was featured as a central character.
Romantic stuff, yes; but I can say it was Thomo’s monologues that fired me to become a writer too. The interesting thing, however, was it was I who became a published novelist before him, He never did make it. This, as I said started from my preteens into my teenage life.
And then in 1970 I became the youngest Art Director in Guyana after taking over the reins from the late, great Eddie Hooper who was the former Art Director at the Guyana Chronicle that was housed, back then, just next to Guyana Stores in downtown Georgetown. I was 19 years old. As an Ad I illustrated the Sunday Short Stories by guys like Rooplall Monar and Roy Brummel. This also kept my interest in the literary craft. At that point, honestly, I had not consciously made the decision to become a writer per se. At this time, however, I was more fired to be the best commercial artist and painter. The decision to become a writer came with my decision to write my first novel, Apata: The Story of a Reluctant Criminal.
KN: So let’s talk about Apata. Where did the idea come from?
HB: What may be more interesting to you is what prompted me to write Apata. Did you know that one of the things that drove me creatively from the early seventies was the fire in my belly to become a film maker—a film director to be exact?—Oh yes. Those were the days when I perused all of the public libraries in Georgetown—the JFK Library, British Council, Public Free (National Library), in order to borrow books on film making and directing techniques.
Yes, I was going to become a film maker and nothing was going to stop me. I even wrote two film scripts and tried to shop them around Georgetown. I wasn’t getting anywhere though. It was then that I made the decision that maybe if I wrote a novel—an adventure novel specifically—maybe some producer ‘outside’ might become interested in making it into a movie and I might get the chance to be a director of my own film.
I always thought big. So the next question was, what can I write about that would be Guyanese and adventurous. And I hadn’t to think far since the Cuffy manhunt had always been etched in my mind—since I was around eight years old…. The rumours, the fears, the rumbling trucks down New Road with us as children goggle-eyed and wondering about the ‘bad man Cuffy’ and which other police he kill… In my mind there was no question—Cuffy’s story would be it. So I pitched into heavy research at the Archives—housed at that time in Water Street next to the Fire Station, and the archivist was Tommy Payne.
I remember Tommy asking me, “What you wasting time researching dat criminal for?” But what was most interesting was that as I researched the fugitive, I soon began to empathize with the character, in many ways I saw him as myself—a dark-skinned young man in a colonial context fearing the odds despite his talent. So as I researched, and as I started to write, Cuffy (who became Apata in my novel) became fused with a ton of biographical stuff mixed with the actual details of the true story and a new character was born. I started writing Apata in Georgetown and finished it in Linden.
What was even more interesting was the process of getting published. Many thought I was wasting my time even starting such a project since they thought I would never get published since I was living in Guyana. The local wisdom then was that one had to be in England to be published by an English Publishing company like Heinemann or Faber and Faber. My answer to that was, “Who said so?” So to get the truth I simply wrote a simple query letter: Dear… Would you consider a manuscript written by someone out of the United Kingdom? …”
I sent the letter to a select group of reputable publishers in England, and in time the replies came; Heinemann said why not? Faber and Faber said why not?—and all of them said: Send the manuscript. And as the cliché goes: The rest is history: I became the very first Guyanese to have had a novel published overseas and by a reputable publisher without having had to leave Guyana.
In 1986, Apata: The Story of a Reluctant Criminal was published by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, in 22 Bedford Square, London. Afterwards I was listed as one of the Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series novelist. At that point I became a writer; and it was from that point that many on the local scene who thought that they were the bona fide custodians of literature began trying everything that they could, to bury every one of my achievements. Why? Simple; I had defied the very system of artistic achievements in Guyana—predicated on a hierarchy of skin colour. In short, my literary achievements had to be ignored because I was dark skinned; I became the central character in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
KN: How did it feel to be published as a novelist?
HB: Truth be told, it was one of the most exciting moments of my life.
KN: How did you turn to writing drama?
HB: I started writing Apata in Georgetown and really got into it in Linden. But before that I had read a collection of plays by Maxim Gorky and was intrigued about his local characters. Here was a man who was writing about his local people and putting them on a pedestal. I too wanted to do that. I left the Guyana National Service Publishing Centre in 1979 and went to Linden.
Once in Linden I put together my first full length play about a man whose wife is led to believe that he neglects her sexually because he’s so obsessed with his socialist studies—a wife who, in turn, is driven into the arms of a guy who works at the local super market where ‘Guylines’ would be formed for scarce items like rice and butter—hence the name of the play, THE BUTTERLINE. This drama was staged at the Lichas Hall, and when it was done I felt a deep sense of achievement: I had written a Guyanese drama in which, like in a Maxim Gorky play, all the characters were grass roots people speaking in grass roots language. One day after the play I was visiting a friend in Linden’s Canvas City when I heard someone clapping as I passed a house. I turned and there was this woman with her head tie at her back door, and she was shouting out to me, “Congratulations!—The Butterline!” I never felt more proud. This was no intellectual woman with an affinity to literature. This was a simple down-to-earth woman in whose heart I struck a chord: a chord that recognized her simple existence as worthy of being staged.
So you can say that I was writing drama the same time I was working on my first novel.
KN: What was the reaction around you (from friends, relatives) when you first embarked on this career?
HB: Of course, when it came to family reactions, my father thought I was just fooling around in my intent to be an artist. (When he was alive my writer’s future was not yet delineated.) My mother, though, was my champion. She said to my father: “Leave Harold alone; he know what he doing.” And this is the reason I owe everything I have achieved to my mother–a simple woman who wasn’t educated or artistic or literary–but she had faith in that son that many thought was weird.
KN: What is the secret of your success?
HB: The secret of my success as a writer is being an intense crafter of whatever fiction I put together. I believe in diligent crafting and plotting. I write the way I would put a model car that arrives in pieces: meticulously—weighing every word and making sure that every sentence makes sense—and that each sentence cut together, makes a fine paragraph. Along with the crafting, I put the realities of my life into my work; all of my characters are a multiplicity of myself and my experiences and the experiences of people I have know and know. To become a playwright I studied the craft of other playwrights like Maxim Gorky, Arthur miller, and Howard Sackler. To become a novelist, I studied the writings John Steinbeck, Hemingway, and many other American writers; I also studied the works of Samuel Selvon, Roger Mais, Orlando Paterson, and Earl Lovelace. All of the above comes together as the ‘secret’ of my success as a writer.
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