Ken Puddicombe, author of Down Independence Boulevard And Other Stories, winner of the Guyana Prize For Literature (Fiction 2022), captures a nostalgic look-back at life in the British Colony in The Before and The After independence in twenty-three poems.
The Before captures the weather in the pre-independence period with poems Rainy Season and Tropical Rainand Aftermath, indentureship in The Bonded, characters like The Town Crier and Lincoln who were clearly influential in his early childhood observations, the impact of the cinema in the colony in the person of Reds The Scalper who sold tickets at a marked-up price outside the cinema, and Rioters during the disturbances when Georgetown's business district was devasted by arson and looting.
The After touches on the post-independence era with the impact on the social life of the new nation (Moving Sidewalks, The Punt Trench, Roadside Vendor), people displaced during the disturbances (The Refugee) and a nostalgic look at a period long gone (Life In The Countryside, Not Coming Home, Echoes).
