LargeUp Interview: Kwame Dawes + Justine Henzell on Jamaica’s Calabash Festival

Words by Jesse Serwer—

When Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes and Justine Henzell launched the Calabash International Literary Festival in 2001, it was the only event of its kind in the Caribbean. But its oceanfront location, at Treasure Beach on Jamaica’s south coast, ensured its appeal, and it quickly grew into a beacon, bringing major global literary figures like Junot Diaz and Robert Pinsky to Jamaica each spring. (It now happens every other year, not annually). Today, Calabash is not only a hugely popular and beloved event in Jamaica, but the inspiration for the numerous other international book festivals that have popped up across the Caribbean.

This year’s Calabash, which kicks off tonight and continues through Sunday June 1, features a heavyweight author roster that includes Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith, as well as Prodigy, the Mobb Deep rapper who recently launched his own book imprint, Infamous Books. Jamaica Kincaid, Mervyn Morris and newcomers Karen Lord and Roland Watson-Grant are among the Caribbean authors on the program. It will also serve to launch several notable works including Go De Rass to Sleep, a yardie-fication of Adam Mansbach’s best-selling “bedtime story for adults” Go the F*** to Sleep that may be the first book ever translated into Jamaican patois, and include a tribute to the reggae singer Judy Mowatt.

We spoke with Kwame Dawes—who also happens to be Jamaica’s most lauded poet—and Henzell—a movie producer and the daughter of the late Harder They Come director Perry Henzell—about their pet project.

Click here to read the interview.

LargeUp: How did Calabash get started?

Justine Henzell: Kwame and Colin were on a book tour across England, and it was quite a disorganized tour. People didn’t have their books, sometimes there was no audience, and they kept saying someone needs to do a proper book festival. By the end of the tour they realized that the someones were them and Colin called me because neither lived in Jamaica, so they needed someone on the ground. They called me and said they have this crazy idea. And I said I love crazy ideas, let’s do it. The first festival in 2001 was only a few hundred people, now we have a few thousand people. It’s been amazing to see the growth.

Kwame Dawes: The idea was to try and enhance the literary world of Jamaica, creating workshops, and have the festival as a kind of high-profile marquee of that effort. When Colin came to Jamaica he met Justine and we put it to her brother [Jason] whether we could use Jakes [the Treasure Beach resort where Calabash takes place, which is owned by the Henzell family] and they agreed with enthusiasm. So we had the first festival at Jakes in 2001. It was a great response. People didn’t think anybody would show up but some people showed up. So that’s how it started, and we’ve been going strong since then.

LU: How did you decide on the name?

KD: This was Colin’s idea. There’s an area not too far from Treasure Beach called Calabash Bay. The calabash is a traditional fruit used in Africa and the Caribbean as a utensil, usually to collect water or serve fruit. It is a very rustic, downhome instrument from the earth. So we thought it would be a perfect metaphor. You put all of this great food inside the calabash. We used to give out these wonderfully designed calabashes as a takeaway gift—people collected them. But knowing Jamaica, if anything can sound like a bash—you know, you’re going to ‘the bash’… it definitely has a ring to it and people have caught on to it.

Paul Holdengraber and Wole Soyinka. Photo by Hugh Wright.

LU: This year you have some interesting names, like Salman Rushdie and someone like Prodigy. How do you decide on the programming?

JH: We have very firm brand guardrails. Everything needs to be earthy, inspirational, daring and diverse. Everything we do, we say does it meet this criteria. Then we choose a theme, and we’re very conscious of being an international festival. It’s not a Jamaican festival, it’s not a poetry festival, it’s all genres, all different nationalities. This year we wanted to make sure we had writers from all over the world. Which we have achieved, we have Ngugi Wa Thiong’O from Kenya, Valzhyna Mort from Belarus, Paul Muldoon and Colum McCann, who are Irish, Rahul Bhattacharya from India. As well as Rushdie. It’s an exciting program this year.

KD: Calabash is programmed in a simple, basic way. I [am] looking out for interesting writers who are emerging, new books that are being published. We usually have a long list of writers on our wish list, in fact some of the writers we have this year have been on our wish list for years, and we think about how to find connections to them, other writers who know them. [The] program has to have a number of key elements. It has to have some major marquee name we think will win the attention and interest of our audience. We want writers who have had a book in print within the last two years. if the writer doesn’t, they don’t get invited to the festival. Thirdly we try to make it diverse. It’s an international festival, but it’s also a festival based in the Caribbean, so we like to get some voices from the region. But we also want to make it international in the most broad way possible.

JH: [With] Rushdie, we have mutual friends. He’s known about the festival for a long time and wanted to come, but it was a matter of fitting into his busy schedule. We finally found a year that he could be here.

LU: Does that mutual friend with Salman Rushdie happen to be Jimmy Cliff? Salman and Jimmy are friends. We have this great photo of them together at Miss Lily’s.

JH: [Laughs] No, it was the Jamaican novelist Marlon James. That’s great, though.

What are you doing to bring attention to the literary scene in Jamaica and the broader Caribbean?

JH: Not only does Calabash happen in Jamaica, it happens on the South Coast of Jamaica in a little fishing village that’s one of the most beautiful places in Jamaica, so it can’t help but be Jamaican. We have incredible Jamaican food for three days, reggae every day, it is infused with Jamaica. If we didn’t have one Jamaican writer on the program it would still be completely Jamaican. We have Jamiacan and Caribbean authors on the program not because they are Jamaican or Caribbean, but because they are worthy. We get a lot of requests like “I’m Jamaican and I wrote that book.” Well, that’s great and we applaud you for that but that doesn’t necessarily assure you a place on the Calabash stage.

LU: Is there more attention being paid to Caribbean authors right now?

JH: We have a lot of fantastic Caribbean authors who are doing really well. Two interesting things are happening. One is a lot of authors who identify themselves as Caribbean live outside of the Caribbean, and the other thing is that the writers writing in the Caribbean are not necessarily writing what would be thought of as Caribbean themes anymore. There is a Jamaican writer at Calabash this year, Roland Watson Grant, and his book is set in Louisiana. There is another Jamaican who currently lives in Japan, and his book just won a Commonwealth Writers Prize.

LU: And how does Calabash factor into this?

KD: I think one of the great contributions of Calabash to Jamaica and the Caribbean in general has been to put literature at the forefront in the media, in newspapers, television and so forth. We started a system of book launches that started with Calabash, and book launches are ubiquitous in Jamaica now. We had Novelty Trading, which was then a fledgling distributor, as our key bookseller at the festival and they’ve grown to be the biggest book distributor in the country. We’ve held workshops for writers in fiction and poetry for over 10 years, several of our writers have become quite famous and won major awards. Most importantly, to get 2 to 3,000 people to a festival in St. Elizabeth every year, and these are largely Jamaicans, coming from all walks of life, to just enjoy literature, and have Jamaica be known for its literary festival—those things give a kind of credibility to the literary arts [here]. When a writer from Jamaica gets to read with Junot Diaz, that gives them a sense of belonging in the world of literature. So that is one of our big contributions.

LU: Are there any new authors you are hoping people will discover at Calabash, Jamaican or otherwise?

KD: Some writers who people may not have heard from the Caribbean would be people like Millicent Graham, a poet who will be reading; Karen Lord, who is a relatively established writer and novelist but a lot of Jamaicans may not have heard of her. Roland Watson-Grant is probably the big find but I wouldn’t say we discovered him. He has published one novel and has another coming out. He’s a very exciting young Jamaican writer and I think he’s going to go places.

JH: Roland Watson-Grant is a fantastic talent. Another Jamaican/Nigerian, A-dZiko Simba Gegele, her young adult book just won a prize and she came out of the Calabash writers workshop. Saturday morning we have four Jamaican poets who are reading, and the newly installed poet laureate of Jamaica, Mervyn Morris. We have not had a poet laureate in Jamaica for over 50 years. He was just appointed a week ago and his first reading is going to be at Calabash.

LU: Anything you’re doing differently this year?

KD: One thing we do every year is a celebration of a great, historical reggae album. This year we’re doing Judy Mowatt’s Black Woman, she’s the first woman we are celebrating in that way. It is usually the climactic moment of the festival, where everybody gets up and dances. It’s a feelgood moment. And Judy Mowatt [is] actually coming to sing a couple of songs [with] Wayne Armond, Ibo Cooper, Steve Golding and the rest of the Calabash Acoustic Ensemble. She’s been very enthusiastic about this effort. And listen man, Black Woman is historical. It’s a great album. For a woman producing that album at a time when so few women were in reggae, it’s important. Artists like Etana and Jah 9 can take their hats off to Judy and the work she’s done as a pioneer.

JH: [On Friday] We have BeLo and Jah9, two singer songwriters, a man and a woman, a Haitian and a Jamaican, with very different styles but I think they’re going to be fantastic together. On Saturday night we have Prodigy for the beach party. Prodigy is an interesting story. Here is a hip-hop artist turned author turned publisher. We thought that was a fascinating journey. He is going to read his work on Friday night and perform on Saturday night.