Slimming for the Beach

I’ve never been to Allioua­gana, but it has a spe­cial place in my heart, and indeed, in Irish history.

Allioua­gana is the native name for the island of Montser­rat which was orig­i­nally inhab­ited by Tainos (Arawaks) mov­ing north from South Amer­ica along the east­ern chain of Caribbean islands, and sub­se­quently occu­pied by the Kali­ganu peo­ple (Caribs) prior to the arrival of Euro­peans in 1493.
Caribbean Amer­i­can Research Foundation

I spent a long time read­ing and think­ing about this island when I was writ­ing my novel The Fisher Child, as its mid­dle sec­tion is prin­ci­pally set in Montser­rat, an island largely dom­i­nated by Irish slave plan­ta­tion own­ers and their descen­dants in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries

Colum­bus, of course, named Montser­rat, (ie Sawn, or Jagged Moun­tain), after the moun­tain of the same name in Cat­alo­nia, which, as it hap­pens, I vis­ited at least once when I lived in Barcelona in the sev­en­ties. The Monastery of Montser­rat, located near the top of the 4,000-foot moun­tain, is famous for its statue of the Black Madonna, (La Moreneta). Have a look at Sacred Des­ti­na­tions for its his­tory and pictures.

One of my work­ing meth­ods is to dis­cover the Indian names for the Caribbean islands before they were col­o­nized, and this was how I came across the Allioua­gana Fes­ti­val of the World.

Its fea­tured artists are

Funso Aiye­jina | Austin Clarke
Car­olyn Cooper | Howard Fer­gus
Merle Hodge | Marie-Elena John
Hol­lis Liv­er­pool (Chalk­dust)
Earl Lovelace | Rachel Man­ley
Pauline Melville | Gor­don Rohlehr
A-dZiko Simba | Yvonne Weekes
Edgar Nkosi White and others.

See their biogra­phies and pho­tos here
I don’t know why this makes me happy but it does. Per­haps it’s because Montser­rat has been so rav­aged by its vol­cano, and to see it now host a lit­er­ary fes­ti­val is yet one more tes­ta­ment to the human spirit.

I was delighted to make con­tact with the won­der­ful Chair of the lit­fest Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, Grace­lyn Cas­sell. Con­tact her on the Allioua­gana Fes­ti­val of the World website.

I can’t go, but I hope some­one who reads this can, or at least sup­port the fes­ti­val in some way. I’m hav­ing trou­ble upload­ing the pdf that Ms Cas­sell sent me but you can see the fes­ti­val pro­gram here