Working titles: The Formative Years/The Caliban Diaries/The Domesday Chronicles/The Domesday Almanac

Author: Caliban Ink.

Publisher: the argosy press

Year of publication: 2022

Place of publication: The New World

No. of pages: 2022 – 1492 = 530 pages (1 page for each year)

No. of pages: 2021 – 1611 = 430 pages (1 page for each year)

Fuck it! To quote from that famous dialogue between Echo and Narcissus, ‘here we go again’.

2022 (this is a countdown from 530 and the page number is 2022, WORD does not allow starting at page number 2022, page number we are instructed must be less that 999.)

These are the years of my life, the formative years of my life, laid down as page numbers.

2022 is a page number. It is also a year. It’s not a Y2K, a 2012 year. Not yet at least, though the romance continues, nostalgia for it perseveres, like tech and the Maya. At best, 2022 may end up being a year in hindsight. Besides, how many writers and readers make it to page 2022? 

Nonetheless, years and pages may yet be added. Middle fingers across the globe are crossed.

But okay, fuck it. Here we are and here then is where we begin; on this page in this year. Year number five hundred and thirty of the formative years. It is late, yes, but not too late. 

2023 SEXIT, Scottish exit from the United Kingdom. This will be followed by the 2024 REXIT, the Republican states exit from the United States. As the Unions are about to disunite, Long live the Kingdoms!

2021

The Argosy Press landed in my lap through someone else’s marriage. I have no right to it, but this is the closest I’ll come to controlling my own press, and the Calibans, after all this time, need their own press. They need to curse using their own press.  

The Booker Prize and the founders of the Argosy Press.

2020

In all the ink spilled and forests deforested, in all the theses and feces nailed to church doors, not so much has been said about my Dad. 

Mystery surrounds my father. You’re looking for a story there aren’t you? Well go find your own fucking story.

Moving on. Let’s debunk a few myths so that we can move the fuck along.

1. I didn’t only learn to curse. I learned to read and to write. That’s right. By reading and writing I learnt to curse. I became cursive, so to speak. 

2. And, I have been reading up. That’s how I found out there is so little  on Dad. Am I right? He must have been an even bigger fucker than Mom. 

3. I am Prospero, Ariel, Miranda, Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco, Trinculo, Sycorax, Setebos, Stephano, Juno, Ceres, Iris, Master, Mariner, Boatswain, Nymphs and Reapers. I am Caliban.

And we let that slide. What else have we let slide? That the mother was a witch, a reclaimed witch, newly refurbished like a Soviet Lada in 80s Gu*ana. That Caliban was the son. All of this from a fucker named Prospero and, whether we care to admit it or not, we believed Prospero. At the end of the day, Prospero remained Prospero. 

Prospero was a damned liar.

Sonnet 155: Shall I compare thee to a slave plantation?
by Caliban Il

Shall I compare thee to a slave plantation?
Thou art more scholarly yet more degenerate:
Rough winds do shake those darling buds of reservation,
And merit’s lease dangles no expiration date;
’tis time too hot the iron of vengeance shine,

How long since sugar’s sweet dominion dimm’d;

Yet persists the master-slave-bachelor combine,
By church and coin’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy infernal damnation will not fade,
Nor full possess the sweated seer thou ow’st;
Nor arbiter inflate your failing grade,
When deplorable in lines to time thou grow’st:
    So long we can breathe or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives lie to thee, University.

 Anil Persaud
23rd July 2020

2019

Remember me? How could you forget me? Already! I’m old, yeah, but you’ve been writing about me.

Right. I can’t say exactly why the line is flat until circa 1769 (but, nevertheless, that is a good coincidence for my story). Anyway, did I say, fuck you? Maybe I haven’t, so fuck you!

Like I was saying you’ve been sweet to write so much about me, for so long. What a fucking career I’ve had. Your fantasies are adorable. 

But you know what, I haven’t yet told my own story. My name has curiously never appeared as author or even editor on a book. Fuck you! This shit pisses me off. You have so far used me to tell your own stories, find your own voice. Used me as a filter for your own lives. But you always maintain a distance from me. I can curse, but I can’t edit, author.

Well that is about to change. As chance would have it. So, you got it, fuck you!

But more about me for the time being. I am the first and the most global person. Coming from the same region as Bob Marley, Bob is a puppy next to me. 

Caliban’s got his own press now. 

Did it cross anyone’s mind that Prospero was a fucking liar? That not only did he get my name word, that it is in fact an abbreviation rather than an anagram, or that he put words into my mouth rather than penning what I actually said, for instance: “You taught me language, and my profit on it is to learn how to curse.” Walcott came closest, “he doesn’t only curse”, but even he too had to have me say “beautiful things.” No, I do curse, but worse than what Prosero was able to report. 

This was also the year (2019) of the first image of a ‘black hole’, making it also the first and only ‘image of time’, if there can be such a thing. It is my assertion that no other ‘image of time’ can exist, or will ever exist. Everything else is temporal, a temporality. We can only speak of, inhabit and exist in temporalities. All other talk, from Deleuze, to Whitehead to Bergson are just speaking out of their arses.

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

Bosnian genocide

1994

Rwanda genocide

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

The fall Berlin Wall. What about its spring?

1988

1987

1986

1985

1984

1983

1982

1981

1980

Rodney’s death.

1979

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971

1970

1969

The Booker Prize. 

1968

1967

1966

Independence, May 26th?

1965

1964

1963

1962

1961

1960

1959

1958

1957

1956

1955

1954

1953

1952

1951

1950

1949

1948

1947

The Doomsday Clock, maintained since 1947. (The Domesday Book of 1086.)

1946

“On Exactitude in Science”

Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley.

…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

—Suarez Miranda, Viajes devarones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

1945

1944

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the groups conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

1943

1942

1941

1940

1939

1938

1937

1936

1935

1934

1933

1932

1931

The Second International Congress of the History of Science was held in London from June 29 to July 4, 1931. Science at the Crossroads was an anthology of the contributions of the delegation from the Soviet Union which attended the Second International Congress of the History of Science. Joseph Needham provided a foreword. It was republished with a new foreword and introduction in 1971. Alfred Rupert Hall wrote a scathing review, claiming that it had little impact in the Soviet Union and that most of the contributors careers led, rather, to the prison camp and the execution squad.

1930

1929

Alfred North Whitehead, (1929). Process and Reality, Macmillan, New York. The foundational text on ‘process philosophy’.

1928

1927

1926

1925

1924

1923

1922

1921

1920

1919

Paris Conference. Treaty of Versailles.

1918

1917

1916

1915

1914

1913

1912

420 – 420 years since 1492. 

1911

1910

1909

1908

1907

1906

1905

1904

Herero and Namaqua genocide. Germany pays reparations in 2021, 1.1 billion Euros.

1903

1902

1901

1900

1899

1898

1897

1896

1895

1894

1893

1892

1891

1890

1889

1888

1887

1886

1885

1884

1883

1882

1881

1880

The “Argosy”  founded in Demerara, British Guiana.

1879

1878

1877

1876

1875

1874

1873

1872

1871

1870

1869

The Periodic Table

Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published the first recognizable periodic table in 1869.

1868

1867

1866

1865

1864

1863

1862

1861

1860

1859

1858

1857

1856

1855

1854

1853

1852

1851

1850

1849

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 1796 – 16 May 1862) is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a member of parliament). He also had significant interests in British North America, being involved in the drafting of Lord Durham’s Report and being a member of the Parliament of the Province of Canada for a short time.

He was best known for his colonisation scheme, sometimes referred to as the Wakefield scheme, which aimed to populate the new Province South Australia with a workable combination of labourers, tradespeople, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants.

Despite being imprisoned for three years in 1827 for kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl, he enjoyed a distinguished political career.

1848

1847

1846

1845

1844

1843

1842

1841

1840

1839

1838

Every occasion to commemorate is also an occasion to ask, Why commemorate?  

Regarding 5th May 1838 the question is larger: Why commemorate 5th May 1838, year after year 

They are three:

1. The Indians, who you will recall, that Columbus set out to meet in 1492, finally arrived, for the very first time, in the New World on 5th May 1838. 

May 5th 1838, therefore, marks a double arrival: it marked the arrival of both Columbus’ Indians and Gladstone’s Hill Coolies, not just in Guiana, not just in the Caribbean, or the West Indies, but in the NEW WORLD. Finally, after 346 years, the Indian of the old world would meet, face to face, the Indian of the New World. 

2. 5th May and 1st August 1838, as we all know, are inseparable: without the 1st of August there would be no 5th of May. But their connection, 5th May and 1st August, like that of 1492 and 1838, is more intimate than that. 

Compared to the pomp and ceremony that accompanied independence in 1966, 1st August 1838 was an uneventful day. No Dukes or Duchesses came Guiana in 1838 to bear witness to the end of the yet uncompensated brutality that was British colonial slavery. Well, that is the history we have been telling ourselves so far – that no one came.

Well, 396 people did come, – bedraggled, half starved and in failing health, but they did come and they did bear witness. When – with the same whip that the same master tore apart black skin on July 31st he tore apart brown skin on August 1st – they couldn’t not witness – their seats weren’t ring side, they were in the ring. There are still many lessons to learn from 1838 and what it means to witness being only one of them.  

3. The third reason and last reason for commemorating 5th May 1838 has to do with the ongoing distress of migrant workers across the globe – at home and abroad, in the new world as well as in the old – that  the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed. 

It may be worth considering, therefore, marking 5th May as Global Migrant Workers Day. The present day of December 18th is arbitrary and has no meaning compared to 5th May: Migrancy after all did not end with Indenture in 1917.  

1837

1836

1835

1834

1833

1832

1831

1830

1829

1828

1827

1826

1825

1824

1823

1822

1821

1820

1819

1818

1817

1816

1815

1814

Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe. ‘Spirit of Vienna’ connected to the Spirit of League of Nations and Spirit of Geneva, See Stella Ghervas’ Conquering Peace.

1813

1812

1811

1810

1809

1808

1807

1806

1805

1804

1803

1802

1801

1800

1799

1798

1797

1796

1795

1794

1793

1792

1791

1790

1789

1788

1787

1786

1785

1784

1783

1782

1781

1780

1779

1778

1777

1776

1775

1774

1773

1772

1771

1770

The Tea Act of 1770 (Britain). Pay for British debt of their seven years war and finances of EIC. 17 million tonnes of tea could now be sold in America, undersold the Dutch. Boston tea party. The loss of America lead the acquisition of India as a colony, 1773.

1769

1768

1767

1766

1765

1764

Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion.

1763

1762

1761

1760

1759

1758

1757

1756

1755

1754

1753

1752

1751

1750

1749

1748

1747

1746

1745

1744

1743

1742

1741

1740

1739

1738

1737

1736

1735

1734

1733

Samuel Madden, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. First science fiction novel (in the English language).

1732

1731

1730

1729

1728

1727

1726

1725

1724

1723

1722

1721

1720

1719

1718

1717

1716

1715

1714

1713

Peace of Utrecht. See 1648 and peace of Westphalia. Idea of the ‘balance of power’ inserted in the peace of Utrecht as a counter to ‘Universal Monarchy’.

1712

1711

1710

1709

1708

1707

1706

1705

1704

1703

1702

1701

1700

1699

1698

1697

1696

1695

1694

1693

1692

1691

1690

1689

1688

1687

1686

1685

1684

1683

1682

1681

1680

1679

1678

1677

1676

1675

1674

1673

1672

1671

1670

1669

1668

1667

1666

1665

1664

1663

1662

1661

1660

1659

1658

1657

1656

1655

1654

1653

1652

1651

1650

1649

1648

Peace of Westphalia as a part of the story of peace – it is the end of the story of peace or the beginning of the story of peace?

1647

1646

1645

1644

1643

1642

1641

1640

1639

1638

1637

1636

1635

1634

1633

1632

1631

1630

1629

1628

1627

1626

1625

1624

1623

1622

1621

1620

1619

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

1618

1617

1616

1615

1614

1613

1612

1611

1610

1609

1608

1607

1606

1605

1604

1603

1602

1601

1600

1599

1598

1597

1596

1595

1594

1593

1592

1591

1590

1589

1588

1587

1586

1585

1584

Hakluyt, Richard (1831). Charles Deane (ed.). A Discourse Concerning Western Planting Written in the Year 1584 (Maine Historical Society. Collections, etc.; 2nd Ser.). Maine: Maine Historical Society. This and his other works were a fertile source of material for William Shakespeare.

 In 1599, he became an adviser to the newly-founded East India Company, and in 1601 he edited a translation from the Portuguese of Antonio Galvão’s The Discoveries of the World.

In support of Walter Raleigh’s colonizing project in Virginia, he prepared a report, known briefly as Discourse of Western Planting (written in 1584), which set out very forcefully the political and economic benefits from such a colony and the necessity for state financial support of the project. This was presented to Queen Elizabeth I, who rewarded Hakluyt with a prebend (ecclesiastical post) at Bristol Cathedral but took no steps to help Raleigh. The Discourse, a secret report, was not printed until 1877.

See also: Sir Richard Edmonds Luyt GCMG KCVO DCM was the colonial Governor of British Guiana in 1964–66. Is the similarity in their names a coincidence?

See also Nandini Das’ writing on Hakluyt. And https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/richard-hakluyt-and-early-english-travel 

Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe by Claire Jowitt, Daniel Carey

1583

A tale of two plantations: The Munster Plantation (1583) and the Monster Plantation.

1582

1581

1580

1579

1578

1577

1576

1575

1574

1573

1572

1571

1570

1569

1568

1567

1566

1565

1564

1563

1562

1561

1560

1559

1558

1557

1556

1555

1554

1553

1552

1551

1550

1549

1548

1547

1546

1545

1544

1543

1542

1541

1540

1539

1538

1537

1536

1535

1534

1533

1532

1531

1530

1529

1528

1527

1526

1525

1524

1523

1522

1521

1520

1519

1518

1517

1516

1515

1514

1513

1512

1511

1510

1509

1508

1507

1506

1505

1504

1503

1502

1501

1500

1499

1498

1497

1496

1495

1494

1493

1492

Enough. The sea’s a calling.

And oh yeah, fuck off!