Kirjahaku

This whimsical collection of photographs of the 19th and early 20th century was Paria Publishing's first "coffee table book" and first published in 1985 in a very large format exclusively in a local print run in Trinidad.In 2024, to commemorate the first anniversary of G rard A. Besson's death, Paria decided to re-publish the book and make it available worldwide via online book stores in a somewhat smaller format. The book was also augmented - according to G rard's wishes - with some new old photographs that have been added to Paria's archives in the last decades.The publication of these photographs was made possible mainly because of two splendid albums of old photographs of Trinidad that were given to Besson by Michael Pocock and Ruby Harding Findlayson. They are mostly of the 1890's and they form the basis of this album. Various other contributors have added photographs to the Album.

This is not a historical novel. This is a docudrama in book form. Philippine traces the adventurous life of an 18th century free coloured family in Grenada, Carriacou and Trinidad-with excursions into France, England and, aboard a French corsair raider, all over the Atlantic Ocean.This, Book First of the trilogy that is Philippine, captures the lives of the "Children of the Sun" of Jeanette, Free Negro Woman of Grenada, and her French husband Honor Philip. In it, G rard Besson places the various members of the Philip family sharply etched against the historical backdrop of the Revolutionary Atlantic, when the people of the Western World began to strain against the shackles of monarchy and servitude and the revolutions of France and South and North America, including Haiti and Grenada, uprooted the social order. We explore the lives and characters of each of Jeanette and Honor 's children based on whichever historical evidence we have-e.g. for Judith, there is an abundance of record that demonstrates her success as a planter and business woman, as opposed to Nicolas-R gis, where all we have is his will and wove a story around him with fiction and leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. Two other sons, Joachim and Honor fils, gave their lives in the Fedon revolution; both were convicted and hanged for their principles in their attempt of an armed fight for the rights of the Free Blacks and People of Colour.Philippine demonstrates how a mixed-race, slave-owning family was able to navigate those turbulent times so successfully, especially as it regards the upward mobility of the mulatto woman: all three daughters of Jeanette's marry white men, but the sons marry black or coloured women. For the interested reader, the historical documents were placed on G rard Besson's blog "Caribbean History Archives" (see QR code).

Book Second of the Philippine trilogy follows the lives of Dr. Jean-Baptiste Philip, the "Free Mulatto", a descendant of Jeannette and Honor Philip of one of Book First. As one of the Souls on Fire of the early 19th century Romantic Movement, and as an alienist, Dr. Philip fought and won the first civil rights case in the New World on behalf of the free coloured people in Trinidad-an achievement that with emancipation benefitted the former slaves, and in the long run the entire population-while exploring the effects of colonial prejudice on the psyche of his people.Book Third is a biopic of Maxwell Philip, another descendant of the Philip family in Trinidad. He became "The Representative Man", a political and legal luminary of Port of Spain of the mid-19th century. In a delightful plot the author lets C.L.R. James "discover" Maxwell in his interviews with Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani in the 1920s.