Caribbean Writers and Their Art: Myths and Mythmaking in Caribbean Literature (1991)

Edward Baugh introduces the idea of myth in literature and his two guests: Dr. Robert Antoni of the University of Miami English Dept., who was born in Detroit of Trinidadian parents and raised in the Bahamas, and Jean Goulbourne, poet and education officer in the Ministry of Education in Jamaica. Antoni discusses his novel "Divina Trace," including its base in folklore, especially the myth of Cytherea or La Divina Pastora, a Trinidadian Madonna figure. He reads a passage from the book. Goulbourne, a short story writer and poet, discusses her background and reads a poem about walking at night and encountering a duppy, or Jamaican ghost. She talks about how rhythm and music play a part in her poetry and how folklore fills her poetry. She remembers how her anger about events in 1970s Jamaica led her to write political poetry. Baugh asks some concluding questions, including the way in which attending university influenced Antoni, who explains that he began studying medicine and came to literature later, and about Goulbourne's writing habits and her study of history.