Lawrence Scott in conversation with Clem Seehcaran and John Siblon, at the London Launch of Golconda - Our Voices Our Lives, edited by Lawrence Scott.

While in Trinidad, (2006-9) novelist Lawrence Scott facilitated the Golconda Writing/Research Project, a community, oral history project among ex-sugarcane workers. Lawrence will be talking about the book that came out of this project glconda - Our Voices Our Lives, and of project's value at a time when Trinidad's sugar industry is being shut down.  He will be joined by Clem Seecharan and John Siblon, both researchers in the fieldsof Indo-Caribbean history. Clem will explore the sources that inspired him to enter this hitherto under-researched field, in the early 1980s.  Several of these sources are located in India and the Indian diaspora, but many are from the Caribbean, such as the great text by C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary (1963). John Siblon will focus on Britain: 'How I think about the past: statues, Monuments and the Black and Asian Presence', explaining that it is easier than we think to  become active participants in discovering aspects of the past, whether public or private.  He will outline his understanding of the term 'public history' and how public history methodology can be used to investigate public and private pasts. Using the landscape of the centre of London as a case study, he will show that as much can be learned about Britain's colonial past from what is absent than from what is present.

Lawrence Scott is a prize winning novelist and teacher of creative writing, from Trinidad. He currently divides his time between London and Port of Spain.

Clem Seecharan is Professor of Caribbean History and Head of Caribbean Studies at London Metropolitan University, and the author of many titles on Guyanese history and cricket.

John Siblon teaches History at City and Islington College. He is a member of the Black and Asian Studies Association.