SOUTH FLORIDA – Since Might when Sharon Gordon held a signing for her first e-book, Sheribaby, at VP Data in Queens, New York, the writer has had related occasions in South Florida, New Jersey and Toronto. Every attracted enthusiastic crowds and took her down reminiscence lane.
Whereas impressed by her youth in Jamaica, Gordon says Sheribaby just isn’t an autobiography. It displays on the title character’s life in Jamaica from 1969 to 1975 in Rollington City, a middle-class group in east Kingston.
“Superb response to the launch occasions; packed homes; excessive power; plenty of conversations and lots of books being offered and signed,” Gordon instructed South Florida Caribbean Information. “Attendees embody plenty of elected officers; celebrities in addition to media of us; in addition to common of us have been popping out to help Sheribaby together with my Alpha ‘outdated women’ as I’m an Alpha lady.”
Alpha, a number one all-girl college, is a five-minute drive from Rollington City. That space was a hotbed of political exercise throughout the late Sixties and all through the Nineteen Seventies when Jamaica underwent tumultuous political and social change.
Gordon migrated to the US in 1979 and like many Jamaicans, settled in Brooklyn, New York. She has by no means forgotten her upbringing in Kingston, and as a nod to these roots, Sheribaby is written in patois, the Jamaican dialect whose use was advocated by legendary folklorist Louise “Miss Lou” Bennett-Coverley.
As she prepares for an additional e-book signing in Laurel, Maryland on July tenth, Gordon encourages West Indians who reside abroad to put in writing books like Sheribaby.
“This can be very vital for these of us within the Diaspora to doc our roots in an effort to depart a legacy, depart a doc for our kids and grandchildren, in order that they know their historical past and their heritage and the vital contributions we now have made to society basically,” she stated.
