eT ne eee

Canadians hit with
_ Soviet readers

(APN) Farley Mowat has been a long standing favorite with
readers in the Soviet Union and he has recently been joined by
more Canadian authors new to the Soviet public.

Publishing Canadian authors is part of the Soviet Union’s
commitment to the Helsinki Accords. Before Helsinki Soviet
publishers put out seven to 10 books by Canadian authors annual-
ly. Now they publish 15. In fact over 50 Canadians have had their
works translated and published by Soviet companies.

For example, just off the press is a study of Gabriel Dumont,
the leader of the Metis rebellion in Saskatchewan, by Ben Swan-
key; the novel *‘Coming of Winter’’ by David Adams Richards
and a new collection of animal stories by Ernest Seton-
Thompson.

Soviet publishers are constantly introducing new Canadian
writers and poets to the reading public. Works by dozens of new
authors have been added in the past few years to the list of books
by Farley Mowat, and Grey Owl, which have been reprinted
several times and are widely known here. They first appear, as a
rule, in the monthly ‘‘Inostrannaya Literature’’ (Foreign Litera-
ture) and in other literary journals. For instance, recently the
journal “‘Iktyabr’’ (October) published verses by Ralf Gustafson
and Alfred Purdy.

Before Helsinki, the Soviet Union published comparatively
little social, economic, scientific and technical books by Cana-
dian authors, whereas today dozens of such publications come
off the presses every year. They include studies of the Canadian
establishment, stress control, energy and other economic prob-
lems, Canadian methods of intensive livestock-breeding and
other questions.

The Soviet Union led the world in the publication of translated
literature even before Helsinki; now it has almost doubled its
prints. The total print of translated literature amounts to some
120 million books and: pamphlets a year, while the number of
translated titles has reached 3,000.

The lead in this field has been taken by the Soviet Copyright
Agency, which represents and protects the interests of Soviet
authors abroad and of foreign ones on Soviet territory. Since
Helsinki contracts have been signed with the Agency’s participa-
tion for the publication in the USSR and abroad of about 35,000
works of literature. The Agency maintains extensive contracts

’ with the Pergamon Press (Britain), Hachette (France), Ber-

telsmann (West Germany), MacMillan (U.S.) and many other
publishers. First contracts for the use of works of literature on a
reciprocal basis have been concluded with Canadian companies,
which are just beginning to cooperate with the Agency and Soviet
publishers. Representatives of the Progress Books, McClelland
& Stewart and Bantam of Toronto have paid a visit to Moscow.

Regrettably, the number of books by Soviet authors published.

in Canada remains far smaller than that of Canadian works pub-
lished in the- USSR. Obviously, the further extension of book
exchanges largely depends or the reciprocal: initiative of the
Canadian side.

Journalist and writer Vitaly Korotich, who had recently re-
turned from Canada, cited an illustrative fact when recalling his
meetings with Farley Mowat. When Mowat decided to publish a

book by the Soviet Inuit writer Yuri Rytkheu, about an inter- .

esting experience of the development of nothern areas in the
USSR, he was refused a subsidy for a trip to the Soviet Union:
such trips are not encouraged in Canada, although the two coun-
tries face quite a few common problems in this respect. Mean-

USSR. ;

time, there have been several reprints of books by Mowat in the -

A nation finds its |
identity in poetry

A TREASURY OF GUYANESE POETRY, edited
by A.J. Seymour. Guyana National Lithographic,
1980. Georgetown, Guyana.

POEMS OF AFFINITY, 1970-1980, by Martin Car-.
ter. Release Publishers, 1980. Georgetown,
Guyana.

_It is often said that a nation or class who reads
other people’s literature will never know who they
are. Now, after centuries of mainly absorbing a
literary experience from outside its borders, an
outpouring of perceptive and useful writing has put
the Anglophone Caribbean well on its way to over-
coming this alienation.

Two recently published books of poetry; A
Treasury of Guyanese Poetry and Poems of Af-
finity, 1978-1980, ably assist in this development.

A selection of Guyanese poems published over
the last 150 years, Treasury refiects the wide rang-
ing interests and struggles of the Guyanese people,
who, it seems, are yet to escape the hardships of
which they write. It is edited by A.J. Seymour, the
respected Guyanese poet and literary critic.

There are 11 sections in the anthology on people,
love, children, nature, landscape, historical, pro-
test, elegies, philosophy, religion and narrative.
While this division may aid the reader in finding a
subject area he or she may prefer, it is a curious
one. One would think that people, historical and
protest, for example, would be lumped into one
section.

Be that as it may, one can still find in Seymour’s
effort such poems as Mercedes Pierre-Dubois’
“You Who Dream About Tomorrow’’, a pungent
yearning that ‘‘someday in my less youthful
days/I too-would join with those/who fight to give
unto these people/What has long been overdue to
them’’.

With the children’s section, Seymour has
brought together some interesting pieces about an
often underrated subject matter. Particularly mov-
ing is Brahmddo Persuad’s ‘‘For Vishwani’’, a gen-
tle plea for the right of children everywhere to grow
up in a world without war.

Martin Carter has gone one step further and
dedicated his 83 page Poems of Affinity to ‘‘all
children, flowers and dogs in that order’’. These
poems are apparently recent works by Carter, now
recognized as the national poet of his birthplace,
the English speaking South American country of
Guyand. Those interested in earlier poems by Car-
ter will find some in the Treasury, where Seymour
gives us 17 of them, including the more well known
**Black Friday 1962”’ and ‘‘I Come from the Nigger
Yard’ ’ S ‘

The only ‘‘hard political work’’ in Poems of
Affinity is ‘‘Bastille Day-Georgetown’’ a page long
plea to remember the murder in broad daylight of a
Catholic priest attending an anti-government

= BOOKS

demonstration. The rest, mainly about children
and the poet’s friends, will probably disappoint
readers who approach poetry and expect to s&
tracts of Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
put to verse. All the semingly insignificant poems
in Carter’s book are worth a look because they ale
honestly put down. Poems of Affinity, then, 15 2
good book to have on your bookshelf as 1S A

- Treasury of Guyanese Poetry. (Or let yout

neighborhood library request it for you).
Both books are published in Guyana but um

~ doubtedly sold in some Canadian bookstores.

TRIBUNE PHOTO —N. FARIA

In compiling his anthology, Seymour has partly
drawn on another by one Norman Cameron Ww:
had collected Guyanese poems from the 183 1-193]
period. In expressing his appreciation of Cameron,
Seymour has observed in his introduction that such
a move was one way of cheating the ‘‘visible an@
invisible enemies of the spirit of Guyana’’. In thet!
own way, both A Treasury of Guyanese Poetry
and Poems of Affinity also do their part in this pe

—N.

Popular Guyanese poet A.J. Seymour

Ed Asner on U.S.

By LINCOLN SMITH.

HOLLYWOOD, Ca. — The
cameras will begin to roll here
soon, but the conflict that broke
out between the workers in the
film industry and the studios is far
from over.

Although the 67,000 members
of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
and the American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists
(AFTRA) have returned to work
with the ratification ofa new three
year contract, they did so through
the picketlines of striking musi-
cians.

Actors took to the street, clos-
ing down the film industry in July,
in what television’s ‘‘Lou Grant’’
described as a ‘‘reintroduction of
the class battle.”’

According to Ed Asner, who
plays the title role in the popular
TV series, alot of people ‘‘tended
to forget (the class battle) and
worked out of class.”’

Asner has been an outspoken

critic of the SAG settlement, argu-
ing that it was ‘‘at best nominal,
but not a victory.”

The major issue in the strike
was over residual payments from
the lucrative home TV market.
SAG went into negotiations ask-
ing for 12% of the producers’
gross in the new market. The final
settlement resulted in 4.5%

‘It won’t mean many actual
bucks for our members,’’ Asner
said.

Beyond the settlement, he said

.the producers’ stonewalling in-

negotiations — which shut down
all film production for three
months, throwing thousands out

of work — ‘‘smacked of strike-

breaking and union busting.”
Striking member of the Federa-
tion of Musicians are being hit by
the same tactics, according to
union representative Max Her-
man.
Herman said they were called
‘back into negotiations in early

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 14, 1980—Page 10

actors’ strike settlement

Oct. by the federal mediator.

‘‘We were ready to negotiate,”
Herman ’says, ‘‘but we weren’t al-
lowed to meet with the producers
unless we dropped our demand o:
residuals.”’ oe

Herman said the union
representatives were kept waiting
four hours, and never got to talk
because the producers refused to
meet with them.

The question of residual pay-:
ments is nothing new in the film
industry. Musicians (arrangers
and composers, actors, writers
and directors) have always re-
ceived residuals on filmed pro-

grams. The musicians want that |

extended to include taped shows.
The producers are refusing to dis-
cuss the issue.

Musicians have set up large
picketlines in front of seven major
studios with ‘‘up to 700 mem-
bers,’’ Herman said. ‘‘We have
total unity in the strike.’”

The hardship on thousands of

non-striking workers who were
laid off during the SAG-AFTRA
strike caused some of Holly-
wood’s top name pro-union ac-
tors to return to the sets, crossing
musicians’ picketlines.

These included Alan Alda and
Mike Farrell of the MASH series
filmed at 20th-Century Fox.

‘‘T regret they are going back,”’
Asner said, adding that he was

‘also weighing the possibility of re-

turning to work ‘‘with the sanc-
tion’”’ of the musicians.

Herman had no comment con-
cerning the actors returning to
work.

Within that contract is a no-
sympathy-strike clause, pre-
venting SAG or AFTRA from of-
ficially honoring musicians’ lines.

He did say he hoped they would
get support from the Teamsters
Union and: others.

Meanwhile, Asner hit at the
crux of the present situation when
he said, ‘“‘The problem in this

industry is there are too many
crafts. We would be better off as
an industrial union.”

He and many others in SAG are‘
going to ‘‘dedicate themselves
over the next three year’’ working
toward that goal by starting with 4
drive to merge SAG and AFTRA,
he added.

His words could well be
prophetic for members of the
Writers Guild (WGA) and the Di-
rectors Guild, both of which are in
negotiations with the producers
over the same issues that forced
the actors out for three months —
residuals on home TV.

So far, according to WGA
negotiators, there has been no
progress.

One major lesson was leamed

* during the strike by working ac-
tors in the film industry, ac-
cording to Asner. Where many
producers acted very paternalis-
tically ‘‘when the lines were
drawn producers fell into line.”

— U.S. People’s World