LiTTscapes: Landscapes of Fiction

LiTTscapes - Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago by Dr Kris Rampersad is a work of art; but also it is a documentary, a travelogue, a critical work with visual and literary power. It takes re on a tour of the country, giving exposure to almost every aspect of life. No tourist guide can give a better, more comprehensive introduction to Trinidad. It is very easy to read. It shows the value that literature has in promoting and presenting nation. No one book can be everything; no one book can set out to achieve everything that a literature and a visual text can do for its people and its nation; but whatever you say one book can't do, this one almost does it. LiTTscapes presents the landscape of Trinidad and Tobago in passages of descriptions, explanations and quotations, complemented by hundreds of colour photographs and excerpts from the literature of the country. Rampersad interweaves her own descriptions into the pieces taken from the literature, so that one gets pictures of the several varied subjects from the point of view of the writers and of their fictional characters. These are taken predominantly from works of fiction covering a range of short stories and novels, but to a lesser extent, there is reference to poetry and drama. The idea of LiTTscapes comes from this drawing from the literature to give scenes, views and visions of landscape and life in clear, colourful, illustrative pictures and snippets of how they are treated in the literature. It is a quite thorough artistic concept. It is a portrait and biography of the nation. Rampersad tours the countryside and highlights features of it, exploring the literature to indicate how the writers treat the subjects, what they or their fictional characters say, and how they are used in plots. Photographs are accompanied by the descriptions and literary excerpts: this treatment is given to the capital city, other towns, streets, urban communities, villages, historic buildings and places, vegetation, animals, institutions, culture and landscape. There is considerable visual beauty, what Derek Walcott calls "visual surprise" in his Nobel Lecture; an impressive coverage of social history, geography, and politics, but also a strong literary experience. It is a survey of Trinidad's landscape and of its literature. The publication reflects a considerable volume of reading, drawing from as early as Walter Raleigh at the dawn of Caribbean literature, which adds historical character and depth to the landscape and culture. Just as the historical development of the country is reflected in the places and monuments, so it is in the rise of social realism through the fiction of the 1930s in Port-of-Spain. Rampersad has done the painstaking work analogous to that of a lexicographer, of sorting out their several hundred references to her subjects. This account includes some memorable passages of real literary criticism, as the references to Lion House in Chaguanas and the Capildeo family which hold great interest for background to Nobel Laureate Sir VS Naipaul. Rampersad provides additional information about Naipaul's use of his migratory existence in her discussions of various parts of Port-of-Spain. Above all LiTTscapes has an extremely powerful sense of place and reinforces what in Rampersad's words is "the pull of place on authors". It may claim to be an accessory to what she calls "the body of fiction inspired by Trinidad and Tobago". It communicates the character of the country. Rampersad's LiTTscapes does achieve an innovative approach to literature in bringing it alive in the description of landscape, life, culture and people. It encourages people to take ownership of it, see themselves, their home or familiar places in it and accept it as a definer of identity.