Cyril Dabydeen
Cyril Dabydeen is a Guyana-born Canadian writer of Indian descent. He grew up in Rose Hall sugar plantation with the sense of Indian indenture rooted in his family background. He is a cousin of the UK writer David Dabydeen.
History
Cyril Dabydeen was born in the Canje, Guyana, in 1945 and began writing in the early 1960s. He won the Sandbach Parker Gold Medal for poetry in 1964 and the first A. J. Seymour Lyric Poetry Prize in 1967. His first chapbook collection, Poems in Recession, was published in 1972. In his early years he taught school, from 1961 to 1970, beginning as a pupil teacher ; Dabydeen taught mainly at St. Patrick's Anglican School, Rose Hall, and received formal teacher-training.In 1970, he attended university in Canada and obtained a BA degree in English at Lakehead University, an MA degree in English at Queen's University, and a Master of Public Administration degree also at Queen's University. He was twice admitted to the PhD Program at York University.
He was a literary juror in 2000 and 2006 for Canada's Governor's General Award for Literature ; the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, in 2000; the James Lignon Price Competition via St. Lawrence University, New York, in 2003; the Small Axe Magazine Poetry Prize in 2011; the Bocas (Trinidad/Caribbean) Literary Prize for poetry in 2013; Canada Council for the Arts awards;and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, among others.
Awards and recognition
Dabydeen was appointed the official Poet Laureate of the City of Ottawa from 1984 to 1987, perhaps the first minority person to hold such a position in a Canadian city.A finalist at least four times for Canada's Archibald Lampman Award for poetry, as well as for the Guyana Prize, he eventually won the top Guyana Prize for Fiction in 2006 for his novel Drums of My Flesh, which was nominated for the prestigious International Dublin Literary Award and was a shortlisted finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. He was again a prize-winner of the Guyana Literature Prize for Fiction, 2022 and 2024, and shortlisted for poetry more than once. His writing has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Journey Prize, and he has twice won the Okanagan Fiction Prize.
He received the City of Ottawa's first award for Writing and Publishing, and achieved a Certificate of Merit, Government of Canada, for his contribution to the arts. He has published about 100 book reviews in outlets such as Books in Canada, Canadian Literature, The Dalhousie Review, The Ottawa Journal, The Ottawa Citizen, The Chelsea Journal, and has been a regular book critic for World Literature Today. He was invited to join the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in the mid-1980s. He has received Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Department of Canadian Heritage, and City of Ottawa Arts awards over the years. He achieved a Word Masala Award, 2018; the Canute A. Brodhurst Fiction Prize, 2020; and acclaimed with Poet of Honour via Ars Notoria and Word Masala Foundation/UK. For the Strands International flash-fiction awards he was a shortlisted finalist ; achieved Honourable Mention ; Second Prize-winner ; and again acclaimed with Honourable Mention. In 2023, he was a prize-winner in the International Conference on the Short Story in English competition, held in Singapore. He is described as "a noted Canadian poet" and his work--"a great poem"—was read in Parliament.
Work
He has navigated a double career as a writer and educator combined with social justice, diversity and race relations issues in Canada ; for a decade he managed a National Action Committee on Race Relations chaired at different times by the Mayors of Toronto, Regina, etc. for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in providing a national clearing house of information to tackle systemic issues, as well as coordinating an annual race relations award aimed at building social cohesion. Previously he was an Administrator with the City of Ottawa, and with the Federal Government. He taught for six years as an Adjunct English professor at Algonquin College, Ottawa, and similarly for 15 years at the University of Ottawa where he achieved the Dean of Arts Part-time Professor of the Year Award, and was a finalist for the National Capital Educators' Award. Under the university's Professional Services Program, he conducted diversity training seminars as a certified trainer to Federal Government personnel and private organizations. His published works have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including the Oxford, Penguin and Heinemann Books of Caribbean Verse, Poetry,''Critical Quarterly, The Warwick Review, Prairie Schooner, Kunapipi, Wasafiri, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, Exempla, Chandrabhaga, Confluence, World Literature Today, Drunken Boat, Fiction International,The Literary Review, The Fiddlehead, The Canadian Forum, PRISM international, The Dalhousie Review, The Antigonish Review, Canadian Literature, Canadian Fiction Magazine, The University of Windsor Review, The Queen's Quarterly, ARIEL, Quarry, Grain, Khavya Bharati , Wascana Review, Short Story, Words and Worlds, Two-Thirds North, Journal of South Asian Literature, Broken Pencil, The Literary Review of Canada, Descant, Books in Canada, Kyk-over-al, The Globe and Mail/Christmas short story], etc.He has done more than 300 public readings—including in about 40 colleges and universities—from his books across Canada, the US, UK and Europe, the Caribbean, and India ;and about a dozen times at the National Library/Archives, Ottawa, and with UNESCO.
He has published and edited 20 books consisting of poetry, short stories, novels, and special anthologies on Asian and Black writing. He is a former member of the League of Canadian Poets and PEN International. His op-ed essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, and the Washington Times Review, etc.
Dabydeen's titles in the field of poetry include: God's Spider ; Unanimous Night ; Uncharted Heart, Poems ; Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems ; Hemipshere of Love ; Discussing Columbus ; Stoning the Wind ; Born in Amazonia ; and Coastland: New and Selected Poems.
His novels include: Drums of My Flesh, Dark Swirl, The Wizard Swami and Sometimes Hard/young adult.
Dabydeen's key short story collections are: Forgotten Exiles, My Undiscovered Country, My Multi-Ethnic Friends and Other Stories, Short Stories of Cyril Dabydeen, Play a Song Somebody: New and Selected Stories ; Black Jesus and Other Stories ; Berbice Crossing ; My Brahmin Days ; North of the Equator, and Jogging in Havana.
He edited four anthologies: Another Way to Dance: Asian-Canadian Poetry ; Another Way to Dance: Contemporary Asian Poetry in Canada and the US ; A Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape ; and Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today.Co-edited with Anita Nahal, et al, Soul Spaces: Poems of Cities, Towns, and Villages''.