Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
HAUGHTON-CARDENAS
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE FOURTH and final session of this year's Calabash Publishing Seminar series, held at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, brought together a varied quintet that sometimes a quibbling.
There was some interchanging of roles, as Calabash International Literary Festival director of programming, Kwame Dawes, and the festival's founder and artistic director Colin Channer were on the stage at the same time, Dawes doing the bulk of the hosting but at times becoming a guest himself as Channer took over the interviewer's role.
Politician James Robertson, attorney-at-law Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas and businesswoman Audrey Marks duly toted along the book that means the most to them plus a few more of significance in their lives.
And Dawes gave a lot of rope, reserving his low opinion of the books or, rather, a particular type of 'life purpose' tome had been chosen until the seminar was well under way.
With Dawes and Channer settled into armchairs side-on to the audience, which had shrunk a bit as a long day wound down, Robertson and Marks flanked Haughton-Cardenas, who would later present as much life philosophy as she did literature.
Robertson's choice for "what is the book that means most to you?" was Shakespeare's Othello, Haughton-Cardenas' was Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God and Marks chose Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life.
Channer named Caryl Phillips' Final Passage, saying that "it was the book that made me realise that I wanted to be a novelist."
For Robertson, Othello came at a time he was preparing for CXC/O'Levels. He said, "The book prepared me for when I went out in life. I spent three years in England and it made me realise that the situation I was facing was not new," reminding all present that Othello was a black general at a time when the Moors were being driven out of Europe.
Haughton-Cardenas said Conversations with God is "the most mind-altering book I have ever read." She delved passionately into the principles of the book, saying that it explains "the quality of life, the choices we make and why and how we can be comfortable in so much misery. "To me it was very empowering," Haughton-Cardenas said.
Marks said, "I am a very driven person and I keep thinking what next?" After doing the 'what next', however, she found that "Many of the answers I was looking for in terms of why we are here" were to be found in 'Purpose Driven Life'.
On further probing from Dawes, she said that the "answer is we are mainly here to serve. For people approaching 40 it is about making a difference," she said.
FRAMEWORK
For Dawes, The Bible is the book that means most to him, the book presenting a framework within which to live.
When Channer asked the guests if the books they read, in addition to their most influential texts, helped them in their careers, the answers were generally affirmative. Haughton-Cardenas said, "I realise that a lot of my clients, I realise I am offering them spiritual advice... Oftentimes people want a hug. They want to know it is alright."
"Clearly it gives you an advantage," Marks said of the business books that she reads. "It gives you a wider knowledge base to draw on when you are making decisions."
And it was not all heavy stuff, as Robertson said that he was very much into the thrillers of the Robert Ludlum and John Grisham variety when he wants to simply relax.
Reports on the other three sessions of the Calabash Publishing Seminar will follow later this week in The Gleaner.
