St. Martin’s literature and books published here are again drawing attention to the island and Caribbean authors published by House of Nehesi (HNP).
In the current Harvard University journal Transition, St. Martin is highlighted in the very opening paragraph of a commanding "review essay" about Words Need Love Too (2000), the poetry collection by Barbadian author Kamau Brathwaite.
Words Need Love Too "is part of an interesting series published out of St. Martin (House of Nehesi)—a felicitous example of the publication of a major Caribbean writer at home," wrote literary scholar Elaine Savory in her review.
Savory’s review is entitled "Journey from Catastrophe to Radiance." She daringly explores the evolution of Brathwaite’s work "through travels and tragedy," and "situates the groundbreaking collection Words Need Love Too in the context of the poet’s extraordinary life." The Transition essay was posted online in October 2008.
http://inscribe.iupress.org/doi/abs/10.2979/TRS.2008.-.99.126
In its Fall 2008 edition, it was Calabash, a New York University journal, that selected and published six poems from the book 37 Poems (2005) by the St. Martin author Lasana M. Sekou. http://www.nyu.edu/calabash
"We are encouraged again by these newest presentations of our books published in St. Martin. We definitely want to keep sharing this type of news with the St. Martin people, certainly with the whole Caribbean," said Jacqueline Sample, president of HNP.
"The essay and the poetry selections are examples of how reviews and literary journals extend the life of books. They widen the readership for writers, with information about their nations and about regional, world and human developments years after the books were published." Sample was here last weekend for the Caribbean Multi-National Business Conference, which was addressed by Governor David Patterson of New York.
Transition is an award-winning international review of politics, culture, and ethnicity with writers and readers "from Beijing to Bujumbura," and which has itself been reviewed by media such as The New York Times, The Nation, and The Village Voice as "tremendously impressive . . . [home to] some of the smartest cultural criticism available anywhere" (The Nation), said Sample.
Calabash, is fast emerging as the US-based journal of Caribbean arts and letters that consistently and critically crosses and publishes literatures and art from all of the Caribbean language zones, said Sample.
Also featured in the current Calabash are works on or about Dr. Opal Palmer, Michela A. Calderar, Kwame Dawes, Adisa Marianela Medrano, Gus Edwards, Myriam J.A. Chancy, and Lorna Goodison.