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Transcription: [00:02:15]
{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
Sierra Leone and I was asked whether I would like to go to Fourah Bay. And you know, and um, of course, that Fourah Bay has a very prestigious name in Africa.

[00:02:24]
And, um, Of course, it's also associated with Eldred Jones, one of the canons in African literature.

[00:02:30]
{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson"} Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]]

[00:02:30]
{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
So I jumped at the opportunity to go there, and then I had my first taste of Creole literature.

[00:02:35]
However, since Creole, as a language is not yet exploited to the extent that it is in Suriname literary-wise that wasn't my introduction really to Creole literature.

[00:02:47]
As such, it was my introduction to Creole as a language.

[00:02:49]
{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson"}
Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]]

[00:02:50]
{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
But it was only when I was back in Holland again that I teamed up with Professor Jan Voorhoeve one of the experts on Creole language who had done a tremendous amount of research.

[00:03:00]
Now prior to that, all research on Creole languages had been done practically, as far as Suriname is concerned by the indomitable Herskovits and Herskovits. [[laughs]]

{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson"} Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]]

[00:03:13]
{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
You know, in the United States.

[00:03:17]
It was when I translated on the suggestion of Jan Voorhoeve a poem.

[00:03:21]
And We had sneakily compared it with an attempt by Herskovitz.

[00:03:28]
We found, to our, and I say this in all modesty, joy that mine was slightly more closer to the truth and actually a superior product that we decided to plunge straight into working together on Creole literature as such.

[00:03:42]
{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson"} Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]]

{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
Which resulted then in the joint publication in Creole in probably the most comprehensive anthology yet for any particular Creole language done up to date.

[00:03:54]
{SPEAKER name= "Brooks B. Robinson"}
Mm-hmm. [[affirmative]] Now I will be asking you to read some of your own poetry a little later,

[00:04:02]
but at this time you're talking about Creole literature and so on.

[00:04:06]
Would you care to read something for us in that literature, in the Creole languages?

[00:04:12]
I suppose what you have here would come from either West Africa or Suriname, either one will do.

[00:04:18]
{SPEAKER name="Dennis Brutus"}
The person I would like to read would be

Transcription Notes:
(from original transcriber) I am not familiar with the names of the writer and scholars they cite, so have left {{??}} marks. (from editor) [00:02:30] please change "to the extent that it is even surveyed" to "to the extent that it is in Suriname" [00:03:00] replace [[??]] with "Suriname" [00:03:54] the speaker name does not show correctly in the video captions