Thomas Glave

The opening of the Calabash International Literary Festival 2008 was very significant, as Thomas Glave led off the three presenters in 'Selector's Choice'.

"Every edition of the festival is a narrative," Calabash founder and artistic director Colin Channer says. "The chapters are the events. The opening and closing chapters of a book are the most important, I'm really proud that the festival opened and closed with momentous events. It opened with a reading that featured the editor of an anthology of gay and lesbian writing from the Caribbean and closed with an acoustic set by a Rastafarian singer. Both the editor and the singer are Jamaican, and what this said to me symbolically is that we don't have to be alike nor share each other's views in order to live peacefully, in order to respect each other as human beings.

Sagging middle works

"But a beginning and an end with a sagging middle works as badly at a festival as it does in a book, and like everybody in attendance I was thrilled with Kwame's chat with Derek. It was simply put, a great conversation. The conversation was relaxed, funny and insightful. Derek was his erudite and charming self. But he also revealed his combative side, his inner Bounty Killer, when he used the long poem 'The Mongoose' to cuss off Naipaul in rhyme," Channer said.

Speaking specifically to the reception for Glave and Rosemarie Stone (the latter got a standing ovation after reading from her HIV positive testimonial 'No Stone Unturned'), Channer said "People know that Calabash is earthy, inspirational, daring and diverse, and they come to the festival knowing - in fact, expecting - to have experiences that will change their perceptions of themselves, experiences that will challenge them to take another look at their beliefs, experiences that will open up the way they think about their lives."

"There are many people who believe that Calabash represents a microcosm of the nation at its best. At Calabash we see many versions of Jamaica on one riddim, and that riddim beats with imagination, ambition, precision, intuition, intelligence, love, tolerance and respect."

And on the day of Stone's reading, Channer said "It seems this is a Calabash of bearing witness, of Jamaican people talking about things that we have long learned in this little island of ours not to talk about."