Tanya Batson-Savage writes about the forthcoming 5th Biennial lecture from the National Library of Jamaica: Olive Senior’s “Colon Man a Come.” Senior, whose latest book is Dying to Better Themselves: West Indies and the building of the Panama Canal, will deliver the lecture twice, in Kingston and St. Andrew. The Kingston lecture will take place on Sunday, September 21, 2014, at the Institute of Jamaica Lecture Hall at 2:00pm; the Montego Bay event will take place on Sunday, October 1, at the Western Jamaica Campus at 5:30pm. Batson-Savage explains:

For many of us, knowledge of West Indian participation in the building of the Panama Canal barely goes beyond the lyrics of the folksong ‘Colon Man a Come’. But of course, the experience went far beyond cracks about dangling brass chains and the inability to read clocks, representing an important element of Caribbean history. So, with the centenary of its opening fast approaching, The National Library of Jamaica, the Institute of Jamaica and University of the West Indies Mona (Western Jamaica Campus) are collaborating to present Colon Man the Panama Experience a lecture by historian and writer Olive Senior.

Dying to Better Themselves, joins Senior’s iconic historical texts including the A-Z of Jamaican Heritage and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage. Senior’s works of fiction and poetry include Summer Lightning, Gardening in the Tropics, Arrival of the Snake Woman, Talking Trees, Discerner of Hearts, Dancing Lessons and Over the Roofs of Our World.

[For more on the book, see previous post New Book—“Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the building of the Panama Canal”.]

For more information, see http://www.susumba.com/books/news/colon-man-come-olive-senior-gives-lecture-panama-canal