closeup A writer with a plan When Trinidadian Kevin Jared Hosein was announced as the winner of the prestigious <strong>2018</strong> Commonwealth Short Story Prize, it brought a shot of fame that any writer might covet. But this was no overnight success, explains Shivanee Ramlochan <strong>—</strong> rather, the culmination of a steady, wilful devotion to writing Photography by Mark Lyndersay Kevin Jared Hosein meets me for our interview on the day V.S. Naipaul dies. The <strong>2018</strong> Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner is neither dismissively snide nor desperately heartbroken at Naipaul’s passing. It may seem surprising that a prominent literary son of the Trinidadian soil has no strong feelings about Naipaul, one way or another, but it’s true of Hosein, who fields my queries on the 2001 Nobel Laureate with an unperturbed equanimity. This isn’t hubris. Hosein doesn’t imagine himself superior to Naipaul’s influence or legacy. This is something else entirely: it’s the year in which Kevin Jared Hosein finds himself a household commodity, at least in homes lined with books. “A lot of it is luck,” Hosein says baldly, referring to his success. This from a man who tried to inveigle his way into a bachelor’s degree in literature or journalism (whichever would have him), despite not having studied literature for “O”- levels. It wasn’t on offer at his secondary school, he explains, though this didn’t dampen his desire to live in worlds of books. The opposite seems to have happened: from early on, Hosein wrote prolifically and read with deep appetite. Stephen King was a childhood staple, followed by Cormac McCarthy. Ask Hosein which <strong>Caribbean</strong> book has most influenced his sensibility as both reader and writer, and he’s likely to reach for Harold “Sonny” Ladoo’s 1972 novel No Pain Like This Body. “It made me understand how diverse this whole setting is,” Hosein says, referencing the small agrarian Hindu community in which Ladoo’s brutal, uncompromising narrative unfolds. Trinidadian and <strong>Caribbean</strong> authors find themselves in something of a golden age. In 2017, Penguin Random House’s Writers Academy named the NGC Bocas Lit Fest one of the world’s top literary festivals. The Forward Prize for the year’s best poetry collection has been awarded to <strong>Caribbean</strong> poets in a trinity from 2014 to 2016: Kei Miller, Claudia Rankine, Vahni Capildeo. Hosein’s own Commonwealth win this year is the second time in a row the international prize has been scooped by a Trinidadian: Ingrid Persaud took it last year. Betting pundits might not be blamed for setting their sights on 2019 as a crowning hat-trick for T&T talent. Though, as Hosein soberly comments, talent might be the least of the equation. He’s equally calm, stoic even, when it comes to prizes. “I don’t ever think about winning a next prize. The prize is a validation, yes, but you can’t expect nothing from nobody.” It’s not animated cheerleading, but you shouldn’t expect that from Hosein, who doesn’t deal in false literary hope. His plans to bamboozle his way into the humanities at the University of the West Indies didn’t pan out, so he graduated in his other interests, earning a degree in biology and environmental studies. He doesn’t regret this, or think of it as a second-string career path: teaching science is his bread and butter, and 60 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
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