Calabash Literary Festival costs millions to stage...

This year's Calabash Literary Festival, which offers a line-up of writers from 11 countries led by Nobel Prize Winner Wole Soyinka, will cost over US$100,000 ($8.9 million) to stage.
Thi is among the most global line-up ever present by Callabash and will have authors from Africa, Pakistan, India, South Korea, Egypt, US, UK, Cuba, Bahamas, Trinidad and Jamaica. Such a line-up does come cheap stated Justine Henzell Calabash production director and co-founder.





From left: Wisynco Group managing director William Mahfood; Calabash production director and co-founder Justine Henzell; Sharon Roper, director of marketing at Flow; Carole Guntley, director general at Ministry of Tourism; and Jason Hall, deputy director at Jamaica Tourist Board, at the launch of Calabash 2010 at Red Bones Blues Cafe in Kingston on Monday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)
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"When you add the funds donated and so on its runs more than US$100,000 and the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) has contributed a significant amount," Henzell told Splash before walking away.
Henzell and a slew of sponsors launched Calabash 2010 at Red Bones Blues Cafe in Kingston on Monday.
The JTB deputy director Jason Hall told Splashat the launch that its spend remained constant year on year but declined to state an exact figure. The JTB committed US$40,000 to the festival in 2009. Calabash is free to the public and begins Friday May 28 to May 30.
The line-up includes Soyinka (Nigeria), Ishion Hutchinson (Jamaica), Diana Macauly (Jamaica), Geoff Dyer (UK), Colson Whitehead (USA), Nami Mun (South Korea), Sharon Olds (USA), Sudeep Sen (India), Feryal Ali Guahar (Pakistan), Helen Oyeyemi (Nigeria), Russell Banks (USA) and many more. There will also be performances by reggae singers Freddie McGregor and Etana.
Calabash 2010 will also mark the release of the anthology So Much Things to Say, a collection of work by 100 poets who have appeared at the festival.
"All proceeds will go straight to the Calabash trust," Henzell stated about the book. She said that festival which began in 2001 operated on a "tight budget" and has "never paid for an advertisement" to market the festival.
Edited by Calabash's other co-founders Kwame Dawes and Colin Channer, and published by Akashic Books in New York, the anthology is described as a "global bazaar of styles, ideas and voices". Poets included in the book are Li Young Lee, Derek Walcott, Elizabeth Alexander, Martin Espada, Michael Ondaatje, Natasha Trethewey, Robert Pinsky, Mutabaruka, Suheir Hamad and others.
Organisers last year planned to cancel Calabash 2009 due to a shortfall in sponsorship from the JTB which initially offered US$26,000 and not the US$40,000 requested. The JTB however met the shortfall following negotiation and public pressure, additionally the CHASE Fund contributed $1.5 million in 2009 and committed to sponsor the event for three years. Sceptics argued that the organisers were bluffing in an attempt to garner more government funds for the festival.
Last year Henzell told Splash that the festival would continue to be free, as a cover charge would ironically increase costs. The authors do not charge for Calabash appearances but are worth thousands of dollars in appearance fees. "If we charged a cover, the authors would not be willing to perform for free," she explained in 2009 about Calabash which is a non profit organisation. "Calabash is a gift to the people of Jamaica."

Courtesy of the Jamaican Observer