Let’s start the ball rolling on national biographies

Dear Editor,

I compliment Ian McDonald’s article in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek on the need to compile a dictionary of national biographies – an excellent proposal and a resource that is badly needed and long overdue. Almost two years ago, I had a letter published in your paper on a related topic titled `Urgent need for biographies of our hidden heroes.’

A national biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures and represents a collection of the lives of people, both living and dead, who have left their mark. Most countries now publish national biographies which provide information about the lives and contributions made by important people in their society. Such a publication can be both retrospective and current providing key information about the contributions made by these individuals.

Guyana sorely lacks a repertoire of biographies of the great luminaries who have contributed towards knowledge as a whole in all disciplines and to our development as a people in particular. This deficiency robs young Guyanese of rich literature that could be inspiring and motivating with historical knowledge to cherish.

Guyanese have excelled tremendously at the domestic level and at the global stage, and continue to do so. We read every day about how citizens around the world with links to Guyana continue to impress us with their accomplishments and contributions. It’s the ingenuity of our intellectual spirit that is at stake when history is neglected. Every new generation builds upon that acquired intellectual tradition when history is preserved and made available to them.

Biographies of Guyanese notables are scattered. A serious attempt at such a compilation was done by the poet, essayist and memoirist AJ Seymour (1914-1989) whose “Dictionary of Guyanese Biography” came out in 1984. Years later, Lewiz Alyan’s three-part series “Grass

Roots of Guyana” became available in 1994 which profiled many Guyanese notables in a range of disciplines. Profiles of prominent Guyanese can also be found in other compilations like CA Wood’s “Biography of the West Indies”, UWI Professor Bridget Brereton’s “Dictionary of Caribbean Biography” (1998) and OUP’s “Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography” (2016), to name a few.

With technological advances, the internet (the world’s library at your fingertips), the Rodney National Archives, the Public Library and the UG Library, all it takes is someone with an open and objective mind; an interest to profile our hidden heroes, regardless of political stripe, religion, sexual orientation, race and colour; to step up to the plate, take the lead and start the ball rolling. I will be only willing to assist.

My compilation of a Bibliography of Guyana and Guyanese Writers in 2004 with an updated fourth edition in 2015 and a Foreword by the late Professor Jan

Carew showcased over 3000 titles and well over 1500 authors – an astonishing feat for a small country. A second good resource of mine, the Encyclopedia of the Guyanese Amerindians contains, inter alia, some notable figures who made a tremendous impact on Amerindian development. Both of these reference resources can be the backdrop and a source of authoritative information in compiling a proposed Dictionary of Guyanese National Biography.

Legacy contributes to pride as a nation. It inspires others to do great things. Perhaps what is needed is a Foundation that would raise and manage funds to support research to develop these profiles of significant contributions by Guyanese. Preserving institutional memory of our notable Guyanese should do justice to their genuine contributions.

Yours faithfully,

Lal Balkaran

Author and IIA-Guyana Founder Scarborough, Ontario