BOOKS FEATURING BELIZE ON EXHIBIT AT IMAGE FACTORY

April 21, 2010

An exhibit titled "Books Published in and About Belize" opened this morning at the Image Factory. As a part of Book Week activities more than three hundred books are on display as a way of celebrating books that have that Belizean touch. Organizer, Yasser Musa, tells us more.

Yasser Musa; Organizer, Books Published in and About Belize

"Many of the authors, yes, are Belizeans but many of them are not. We have categorized the books, over three hundred of them, into literature books, poetry, short stories, novels and also art books, catalogues, books about artists like George Gabb and Benjamin Nicholas and also book about history. In addition to that we focussed on two collection; the Craig family collection which Meg Craig is the leading proponent of and I believe she is a great asset to this country especially in the area of culture and history. Her collection of books is outstanding and we have almost a hundred books from her collection; most of them in the twenties and thirties and some from the late nineteenth century. That is in the rare books section. We are also featuring a publisher, Cobola Books, which comes from Benque Viejo Del Carmen and we have most of their books on display as well. When we add up the Image Factory Collection of Books, the Image Factory Collection of Books and the Meg Craig collection of books I think you can get a good picture as to what has happened in the past one hundred and thirty years in terms of books."

Among the many books on display are some that have been included in the primary and secondary school curriculum.

Yasser Musa

"I believe one of the iconic books; one of the most outstanding books that everybody knows is the Atlas of Belize. We have all used it and it has been published since 1976 if I am not mistaken. We have all used it in school so several generations of students have used that book. But also there are also many other books that are popular books that have been written by John Alexander Watler, books by female poets and Assad Shoman's Thirteen Chapters. I can go on and on but I think that because there are such a variety of books people can find something here either they remember reading or would say 'oh, I wish I could get a copy of that'."

Melinna Martinez, Reporter

If they do want to get a copy of the books they see here what can they do?

Yasser Musa

"Well, many of the books are still in circulation so people can still buy at Image Factory Book Store or Angelus or Brodies or wherever. But many are not so they would have to go the library; the Belize Library Service has an excellent collection of Belize books and so this might trigger people to say 'oh, I never read that book I can go there and borrow it'. I think that is the idea, to try and have Belizeans look at an exhibit like this and realize that we should celebrate books but we should also reflect on the crisis that we face in reading, the crisis we face in writing because if we do not do something to improve this situation we will lose yet another generation of people who do not like to read. That is not a route we can afford to take."

Musa says he hopes some of the books can be kept somewhere permanently so the discussion on the importance of reading does not end on Saturday when Book Week comes to a close.

LOVEFM