PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – A collection of Tony Deyal’s weekly regional columns entitled “Tony Deyal Was Last Seen” will be launched via ZOOM from 06:00 pm – 08:00 pm on Tuesday, November 23, 2021, by the National Library and Information Systems (NALIS) of Trinidad and Tobago.
Tony Deyal’s weekly regional Saturday column started in April 1993 in the Barbados Nation and continues to run in that paper as well as the Jamaica Gleaner. The column had a long stint in the Trinidad Express and Guyana’s Kaieteur News as well as other regional and international newspapers. It can now be found in the Toronto Independent and Caribbean News Global.
Tony explained that he started work with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) in 1992 and his “beat” was the English-speaking Caribbean. When he moved to Belize as the public information and education specialist in a CARICOM/World Bank project, Tony had the same beat – what he calls his “beloved Caribbean”.
The same thing happened when he became corporate secretary and communications specialist for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). This is why he claims that while he is a Trinidad and Tobago citizen, he is a Caribbean National and proud of it. He boasts that his first two children are “Trini”, his wife is Guyanese, his last two children are Bajan, his younger son has played cricket for the Leewards Under 17 team, and he has lived or worked in every English-speaking Caribbean country.
Having been convinced by Professor Emeritus, Kenneth Ramchan that he should put his articles into a book, Tony chose 76 (one for each year of his life so far) from the roughly 1,500 articles he has written over the 28 years. He made sure that there is at least one article on each of the English-speaking Caribbean countries and several more in the places he has lived or spent a lot of time in – Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Guyana.
In his introduction to the book, Professor Ramchand insists, “Tony Deyal is the most widely read columnist in the English-speaking Caribbean. Of the pure humourists I have read, only Mark Twain is in the same league as Tony Deyal. […] In all the islands Tony discovers and embraces the deep, structural commonalities, and the bold features on the surface that bind the peoples of the region in one Caribbean.”
Commenting on his book and its launch, Tony said: “I wanted something different about the Caribbean, a book that proves we have more in common as a people than we have differences. I wanted to celebrate life in the region and show how we live and love it. I wanted people from outside the region to see us as we see ourselves.”
Chairman of Royards Publishing, Clifford Narinesingh, says that there has never been a Caribbean book like this one and that he, like Professor Ramchand, sees it more than a collection of jokes. He stressed: “As someone who was an English teacher and whose company specialises in text-books, I believe this book by Tony should be in the CXC syllabus, not only because of its topics and humour, but also for the quality of Tony’s writing and mastery of the English language as well as his knowledge and love of the Caribbean.”
