Course launched about our literary history

Bermuda’s literary history is set to go under the microscope as part of course in island writing at Bermuda College.

The course, the second of its kind, starts later this month, tutored by college senior lecturer in English and writer Angela Barry.

Ms Barry said: “We’ve had people in Bermuda for some time. People have been writing about Bermuda for hundreds of years and people have been writing in and from Bermuda for a much shorter time.

“Wherever you go in the world, you will find writers writing and their work being put into context as well. That didn’t happen in Bermuda, but it’s happening now.

“We are not just writing about what people write but discussing and critiquing it and adding to it.”

Ms Barry said that people had been slow to recognise Bermuda’s rich literary history, but that the bequest of the papers of internationally-recognised island author Brian Burland to the college had helped kickstart greater interest.

The works of Mr Burland are a feature of the course.

Ms Barry added: “I’m particularly interested in teachers taking part in this course and not just for their own general knowledge.

“It makes perfect sense for teachers in situ to come and find out and get more information they can then take back to the classroom.”

Among the graduates of the course, which runs from late August to December, were librarian Daurene Aubrey and lawyer Catherine Hay.

Ms Aubrey, who works at the Bermuda National Library, said: “You see these books on the shelves, but this is the first time I have come to grips with them. Brian Burland was of world stature, that’s not over-stating the case. He just needs his importance recognised.”

She added: “I took away a greater appreciation of our country as a whole and of our authors and creative writers.”

Ms Hay, who won the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society’s Golden Inkwell award last year, added: “We all get the sense of Bermuda, but it never came together as a literature. One of the best parts of the course was that Bermuda literature is something that is ongoing.

“We had to do a creative component so we are contributing to that. We got the sense that writing about Bermuda and from Bermuda is something we have inherited. There are a lot of common themes we all grapple with and we’ve been grappling with them for centuries.”

The course examines both literature and society, and examines books like The History of Mary Prince, the story of Bermudian slave and her life and the Painted Lily, written by an expatriate woman who lived in Bermuda in the 1920s.

There is only one known copy of The Painted Lily known to exist, sourced from a London antiquarian bookshop. It is thought that all the copies of the book that came to island were destroyed as it was highly critical of the island and its people. 

Registration for the Studies in Bermudian Literature course ends on August 21. More information on the course can be obtained from Ms Barry on [email protected]