Sylvia Wynter's Dream

by Natalia Downer

Below – and how it pains me so – I have attached a short story that I had begun writing for the PSCCA Short Story competition, only to later read the fine print and realize that, in order to actually have a chance of winning at all – not by my craft or good use of grammar – I would have to include aspects of Caribbean culture. I had to rewrite what, to me, was already on its way to becoming something worthy of submitting, something I was proud of. And so, in the side by side comparison, you can see an excerpt of the longer-form story that I had submitted to the competition.

Slide the arrow across to see what I had begun writing, and how it had to be rewritten for the sake of the competition.

As much as I still didn’t win the competition itself, I somewhat won my freedom. What I mean by this is that, in the end, I decided to keep my original written piece and complete it for use at some other point in life, rather than deleting it. By doing so, I refused to surrender to the oppressive nature of the creative industry in Jamaica, and you should too.