{"id":1046,"date":"2001-10-09T21:36:44","date_gmt":"2001-10-09T21:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/?p=1046"},"modified":"2015-05-12T21:37:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T21:37:45","slug":"sekous-rightful-heirs-translated-into-dutch-published-in-new-book-in-the-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/2001\/10\/09\/sekous-rightful-heirs-translated-into-dutch-published-in-new-book-in-the-netherlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Sekou\u2019s \u201cRightful Heirs\u201d translated into Dutch, published in new book in The Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. MARTIN (October 2001) <\/strong>\u2014 Uitgeverij Contact has recently released\u00a0Tropentaal<\/em> in The Netherlands,<\/em> an ambitious book of prose literature edited by Aruba\u2019s dedicated literary chronicler Wim Rutgers. The 637-page hardcover tome includes some 95 stories and fragments from the oral and literary traditions of the Dutch territories in the Caribbean for the last 200 years.<\/p>\n

In the seventh chapter of\u00a0Tropentaal<\/em> can be found Lasana M. Sekou\u2019s \u201cThe Rightful Heirs,\u201d from his book\u00a0Love Songs Make You Cry <\/em>(House of Nehesi Publishers, 1989). The story, wrapped in mystery and patriotism, is about elderly leaders secretly planning for the unification and independence of St. Martin by involving young people, and how the new generation was about to impact on their plans. \u201cIt is interesting that that story would be selected,\u201d smiled Sekou, who last week received a copy of\u00a0Tropentaal<\/em>. \u201cIt could just be part of the spirit of the times, of a vision and direction that is searching us out to activate our claim to our manhood and our island as our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The St. Martin author has long been impressed with Wim Rutgers\u2019s work. \u201cRut-gers has been doing his best to chronicle and review the literatures of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean for some time.\u00a0Tropentaal<\/em> is a landmark of his dedication and a dramatic leisure reading book and research tool for a Dutch reading public and literary scholars and students.\u201d All of the writings are printed in their original Dutch or translated into Dutch from Papiamentu and English.<\/p>\n

In the oral tradition chapter of\u00a0Tropentaal<\/em> can be found the lively \u201cTete en Massa Yaya,\u201d a St. Martin folktale penned by Camille Baly, also from St. Martin, and \u201cIndianenverhalen\u201d penned Saba\u2019s Will Johnson.<\/p>\n

Another St. Martiner featured in the book is Fred Labega (\u201cVerschijning\u201d), thought to be the most serious pre-1950s St. Martin writer. \u201cThe prose fiction and poetry of the late Mr. Labega have not yet been collected and published in book form,\u201d says Jacqueline Sample, House of Nehesi Publishers president. \u201cJust as we did in the late 1990s with the works of Borromeo Hodge, we have been interested in publishing Mr. Labega since the late 1980s. We\u2019ve seen some fine pieces. He was the typical St. Martiner when it came to his travels and the many languages that he spoke and, in his case, wrote in\u2014but we haven\u2019t been able to make contact with anyone with rights to his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writings from Curacao make up the overwhelming majority of\u00a0Tropentaal\u2019s<\/em> richly varied selections. There are also writings from Aruba, Bonaire and St. Eustatius. Among some of the outstanding writers featured are Frank Martinus Arion, Jules Palm, Cola Debrot, Luis Daal, Elis Juliana, Frans Booi, Pater Paul Brenneker, C. Lopes, Diana Lebacs, Guillermo Rosario and Jacques Thonissen. Some of the writings are essays and accounts of historical, social, political, and constitutional topics, such as of \u201cBol\u00edvar op Curacao,\u201d and Boeli van Leeuwen\u2019s \u201c30 mei 1969: \u2018Amador Nita\u2019,\u201d but most are prose fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. MARTIN (October 2001) \u2014 Uitgeverij Contact has recently released\u00a0Tropentaal in The Netherlands, an ambitious book of prose literature edited by Aruba\u2019s dedicated literary chronicler Wim Rutgers. The 637-page hardcover tome includes some 95 stories and fragments from the oral and literary traditions of the Dutch territories in the Caribbean for the last 200 years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2001"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1047,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/1047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}