Author Spotlight - Gerard Besson BOOK: Folklore and Legends of Trinidad and Tobago

ptessslmc
Oct 11, 2020
2 min read

We are currently highlighting Author Gerard Besson's Book entitled "Folklore and Legends of Trinidad and Tobago".

Gerard Besson is a Trinidadian historian, writer, and founder of Paria Publishing.

Gérard Anthony Besson, HBM, DLitt. h.c.

(born 20 January 1942), is a Trinidadian writer and publisher.

He was awarded the Hummingbird Gold Medal for Heritage Preservation and Promotion and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Heritage Preservation from the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago. He has authored numerous books on Trinidadian history and culture. His latest novel is Roume de St. Laurent: A Memoir.

Works

Besson's works as a historian cover various aspects of Trinidadian and Tobagonian history and culture which can partly be traced back to research assignments from various companies and institutions. A core element of his fictional work is the history of the Afro-French-Creole presence in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean, the ethnic group from which his family originates. This topic is being dealt with in his novels The Voice in the Govi and From the Gates of Aksum. The storylines of his novels are fictitious, but the backgrounds are historical, especially in Roume de St. Laurent … A Memoir. This novel depicts the life of Philippe Rose Roume de Saint-Laurent, a French adventurer who had a significant influence on the development of Spanish Trinidad in the late 18th century. Roume was instrumental in the promulgation of the cedula de populacion of 1783 in the Caribbean, an edict of Spanish minister José de Gálvez y Gallardo that allowed for the settlement of Catholics in Trinidad. This edict created a remarkable increase in the population of the island, mostly French-speaking colonists.

In 2000 and 2001, Besson wrote and produced The Land of Beginnings, a monthly supplement to Trinidadian newspaper Newsday that dealt with historical topics and appeared for 24 months. Trinidadian TV channel TTT financed the production of The Land of Beginnings as a threepart documentary. His 2010 non-fiction book The Cult of Will was the subject of controversy, as it sought to deconstruct the narrative of former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Eric Williams with regard to the emancipation of the slaves in the British Empire.[5]

Besson maintains the Caribbean History Archives, a private weblog where he collects new findings on Trinidadian history.

Books by Besson:

Fiction

1973: Tales of the Paria Main Road (Creative Advertising)
1988: A Diary of Dreams (Paria Publishing)
2011: The Voice in the Govi (Paria Publishing)
2013: From the Gates of Aksum (Paria Publishing)
2016: Roume de St. Laurent … A Memoir (Paria Publishing)

Non-Fiction

1985: A Photograph Album of Trinidad at the Turn of the 19th Century (Paria Publishing)
1987: From Colonial to Republic (Republic Bank, with Selwyn Ryan)

1991: Folklore and Legends of Trinidad and Tobago (Paria Publishing)

1991: The Book of Trinidad (Paria Publishing, with Bridget Brereton)
2000: The Angostura Story (Paria Publishing)
2002: The Angostura Historical Digest (Paria Publishing)
2004: Scotiabank – The First 50 Years (Paria Publishing)
2006: The History of Ansa McAL in the Caribbean (Paria Publishing)
2010: The Cult of the Will (Paria Publishing)

Awards

2007: Hummingbird Medal in gold
2007: Lifetime Achiever Heritage Preservation Award of the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago
2015: Honorary doctorate of the University of the West Indies