CKCU Literary News
Wednesday January 22nd, 2025 with Hans G. Ruprecht
Feature interview with celebrated poet and internationally acclaimed author of many books of fiction, Cyril DABYDEEN, based in Ottawa.

CYRIL DABYDEEN, Poet Laureate of the City of Ottawa from 1984 to 1987. 🔸Cyril Dabydeen won the Guyana Prize for Fiction in 2007 for his novel Drums of My Flesh, which was nominated for the prestigious International Dublin Literary Award and the International Booker Prize. He was nominated (twice) for the Pushcart Prize (US), the Journey Prize, and he has twice won the Okanagan Fiction Prize. Cyril Dabydeen's titles in the field of poetry include: 🔹God's Spider (Peepal Tree Press, UK); 🔹Unanimous Night (Black Moss Press); 🔹Uncharted Heart, Poems (Borealis Press, Ottawa); 🔹Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems (Peepal Tree Press, UK); 🔹Hemipshere of Love (TSAR Publications, Toronto); 🔹Discussing Columbus (Peepal Tree Press); 🔹Stoning the Wind (TSAR); Born in Amazonia (Mosaic Press, Ontario); and 🔹Coastland: New and Selected Poems (Mosaic Press).— 🔻His novels include: Drums of My Flesh (Mawenzi House/TSAR), Dark Swirl (Peepal Tree), The Wizard Swami (Peepal Tree) and Sometimes Hard/young adult (Longman, UK). Dabydeen's key short story collections are: My Undiscovered Country (Mosaic Press, Ontario), My Multi-Ethnic Friends and Other Stories (Guernica Editions, Toronto), Short Stories of Cyril Dabydeen (Guyana Classics Series/Caribbean Press), Play a Song Somebody: New and Selected Stories (Mosaic Press); Black Jesus and Other Stories (TSAR); Berbice Crossing (Peepal Tree); My Brahmin Days (Mawenzi House/TSAR); North of the Equator (Beach Holme/Dundurn), and Jogging in Havana (Mosaic Press). 🔻He edited four anthologies: Another Way to Dance: Asian-Canadian Poetry (Williams-Wallace); Another Way to Dance: Contemporary Asian Poetry in Canada and the US (TSAR Publications); A Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape (Mosaic Press); and Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today (Mawenzi House/TSAR Publications)." Credit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Dabydeen