Congratulations to all who made this happen: All 14 issues of New World Quarterly (1963-1972) have been digitized and will be available online very soon. The portal will be launched on June 23, 2017, at 7:00pm, at the Little Carib Theatre in Woodbrook, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. 

Here is post by Annie Paul [writer, critic, and head of publications at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at the University of the West Indies-Mona] describing the project:

It was one of Caribbean economist Norman Girvan’s final requests to his family: Make the archive of New World Quarterly, a foundational journal that appeared between 1963 and 1972, available to younger generations. Accordingly the Girvan family, working with Kari Levitt and Judith Wedderburn, has digitized all 14 issues of this postcolonial gem of a publication, which will be made available online when the digital portal is launched on Friday 23 June, 7.00 pm at the Little Carib Theatre (corner of White and Roberts Street, Woodbrook).This event is free and open to the public.

“Our thoughts are that a digital publication is a contemporary gesture in the spirit and scope of The New World community, residing in a space with open access to all,” said the Girvan family’s statement. Norman Girvan, along with Lloyd Best, George Beckford and other academic activists had launched the journal in the early 60s. A valuable archive of articles on everything from the geopolitics of the Anglophone Caribbean region to agriculture in China, the sugar industry, Sports, Visual Arts, Literature, Caribbean integration the journal represented in its pages the “birth, flourishing and eventual demise of one of the region’s most influential intellectual movements,” the New World Group.

The list of contributors to New World Quarterly reads like a Who’s Who of Caribbean intellectual production: Lloyd Best, James Millette, George Beckford, George Lamming, Alister McIntyre, Sylvia Wynter-Carew, Owen Jefferson, Selwyn Ryan, David de Caries, Gloria Lannaman, Roy Augier, Martin Carter, Vidia Naipaul, among others, along with the timeless art writing of Donald Locke.

Appearing twice a year, NWQ adhered to a Caribbean publication schedule of Dead Season—Croptime and High Season—Cropover. Although it leaned heavily towards the social sciences, the disciplinary leaning of its founders, the quarterly made room for commentary on aesthetic expressions in the region. Along with Abeng, Tapia, Moko and Savacou it was a cornerstone of Caribbean intellectual tradition and an inspiration to contemporary cultural-political journals such as Small Axe. The launch of an online portal granting open access to each issue of NWQ is a stellar contribution to the world of Caribbean scholarship.

[Images above: Courtesy of Annie Paul.]