For­mer Trinidad Guardian ed­i­tor-in-chief Do­minic Kaliper­sad has been award­ed a spe­cial ci­ta­tion by the May­or of New York City, Er­ic Adams. The Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion was pre­sent­ed to him at the Brook­lyn Caribbean Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val (BCLF), which was held in Brook­lyn, New York City, USA, Sep­tem­ber 5-8.

Ac­cord­ing to BCLF founder Mar­sha Mas­si­ah, the may­or want­ed to recog­nise the vet­er­an jour­nal­ist for his “ex­cel­lence on Caribbean jour­nal­ism and sto­ry­telling.”

The ci­ta­tion states, “The City of New York Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion is pre­sent­ed to Do­minic Kaliper­sad on the oc­ca­sion of the Brook­lyn Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val for your con­tri­bu­tions to our cul­tur­al land­scape. Through your tremen­dous ac­com­plish­ments as a jour­nal­ist and me­dia broad­cast­er, you have en­gaged and in­spired di­verse peo­ple in New York and be­yond. I look for­ward to the many ways you will con­tin­ue to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence and strength­en our vi­brant Caribbean Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty as we take bold steps to #get­stuff­done to forge a brighter, more eq­ui­table, and pros­per­ous fu­ture for our glob­al city. Er­ic Adams, May­or. Sep­tem­ber 5, 2024.”

Fol­low­ing re­ceipt of the award, which was pre­sent­ed to Kaliper­sad by Mas­si­ah, the mul­ti-award-win­ning jour­nal­ist said the ci­ta­tion was a trib­ute to the pro­fes­sion of jour­nal­ism in T&T and all those who strive to main­tain high stan­dards. The award al­so co­in­cid­ed with the up­com­ing 50th an­niver­sary of Kaliper­sad’s ser­vice as a tele­vi­sion news pre­sen­ter, the longest serv­ing news an­chor in the his­to­ry of the tele­vi­sion me­dia in T&T.

Kaliper­sad, who has de­vel­oped a post-re­tire­ment rep­u­ta­tion as a his­to­ry en­thu­si­ast and dig­i­tal sto­ry­teller, was in­vit­ed to the BCLF as a re­sult of his “decades in jour­nal­ism and doc­u­ment­ing the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean.”

Mas­si­ah said he was iden­ti­fied be­cause of his “sto­ried ca­reer and ac­com­plish­ments, which, in it­self, is a jour­ney in sto­ry­telling.” She said it was “the high­est ho­n­our” and “an un­be­liev­able ac­com­plish­ment” for the BCLF team to have Kaliper­sad ap­pear un­der the rubric of “Archivists, Pre­servers, Mak­ing New(s),” a new cat­e­go­ry in the six-year-old fes­ti­val that cel­e­brates Caribbean lit­er­a­ture and di­as­po­ra sto­ries.

In an on-stage “con­ser­va­tion” with uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Dr Kevin Browne, they ex­plored Kaliper­sad’s works in lega­cy me­dia and so­cial me­dia plat­forms, their im­por­tance in pre­sent­ing nar­ra­tives on T&T his­to­ry, and how they stim­u­late per­spec­tives among wider de­mo­graph­ics. Kaliper­sad’s at­ten­dance was po­si­tioned as the cul­mi­na­tion of the four-day an­nu­al fes­ti­val. The or­gan­is­ers de­scribed his ses­sion as “the grand­est of all fi­nalés.”

The BCLF, found­ed in 2019, cel­e­brates Caribbean lit­er­a­ture and di­as­po­ra sto­ries. This year’s theme was Faces of the Caribbean, bring­ing to­geth­er re­gion­al schol­ars, writ­ers, artists, archivers, preser­va­tion­ists, and prac­ti­tion­ers to dis­cuss, reck­on with, and ex­am­ine the rel­e­vance and ex­pan­sive val­ue of Caribbean writ­ing and the Caribbean writer to the mod­ern world.

The 2024 event as­sem­bled di­verse and im­pact­ful au­thors and Caribbean sto­ry­tellers. At its end, the or­gan­is­ers re­port­ed that the fes­ti­val was “a bumper year for book sales.” Mas­si­ah said, “All copies of books by Ed­widge Dan­ti­cat, Der­ron Sandy, Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, Di­ana Mc­Caulay, Mervyn Tay­lor, and Jive Po­et­ic were sold out.”

She added, “We firm­ly be­lieve in the pre-em­i­nence of Caribbean schol­ar­ship, our his­toric track record in thought lead­er­ship, and the as­ser­tion that the Caribbean has been the tip of the spear in every sin­gle sig­nif­i­cant change move­ment in the mod­ern world.

“It may be said that all of our ef­forts at the or­gan­i­sa­tion are dri­ven by a com­mit­ment to in­sist­ing that so­ci­eties that ben­e­fit from the Caribbean pres­ence ac­knowl­edge our con­tri­bu­tions and pro­vide repar­a­tive sup­port for our art and in­sti­tu­tions while we si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly cre­ate plat­forms to em­pow­er our peo­ple to take own­er­ship of our nar­ra­tives.”

Of Kaliper­sad, the BCLF team said, “Please ac­cept our deep­est and sin­cer­est grat­i­tude for the sac­ri­fices you make and the way you do­nate your ex­per­tise in ser­vice to the high­er cause of el­e­vat­ing Caribbean let­ters.”