Kyle MacPherson/Freelance Photographer
Every Thursday Robert Lalah brings you stories from deep rural Jamaica and slices of everyday life there. Here he is in Trelawny on one of his excursions.
Paul-Andre Walker, Rural Editor
It is strange that the thoughts of a man wandering around his country would captivate the hearts and minds of people worldwide, but it has.
Three years ago, Robert Lalah began taking readers of The Gleaner on a trip.
Sometimes that trip led to fond memories and sometimes into a world of images and ideas only conceived by flirting with the lines in his feature, Roving with Lalah.
Three years on, the pages that had people scurrying either to the newspaper stand or to the Internet will now find themselves fixed between the hard covers of an Ian Randle-published book.
The book, titled Roving with Lalah - Slices of Everyday Jamaican Life, will first be launched in the United Kingdom at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium on Friday as part of the Word Power book fair. There, Lalah will be signing autographs from 2 p.m.-5 p.m. before heading to the Jamaican High Commission in the evening where he will again be promoting the book.
Columnist
The fair will continue throughout the weekend and Lalah will be signing at the same times on all days.
But what is it that brought the columnist to this stage? What makes him tick?
A quiet, reserved man, whose eyes seem to tell he knows more than he lets on, sat before me and explained that he started writing at a very young age, and in grade four at prep school, when somebody had the audacity to write to the newspaper suggesting Anansi stories be banned from the classroom, he produced his first published work. He wrote a strongly worded letter to the editor of The Gleaner defending the stories.
Ever since then, writing became more than a dream; it became a dream that was achievable.
Ambling into the office for the first time, almost unnoticed, nobody knew he would, four years on, be one of the most talked-about columnists in Jamaica.
Young man
"Before I came here (The Gleaner) I always wanted to have a column in the paper but I never knew how to get there. I wanted to be a writer," he said.
Still a young man, Robert explained that his column has taught him much about life, his country, and himself, but it was not always a bed of roses for the budding writer.
"At first when I saw the initial success, I was overwhelmed, so, initially I felt pressure to maintain the standard, but over time that went away. I don't feel pressured anymore," said Lalah, reminiscing about the growing pains all good journalists have to go through.
"I've learnt a lot about the country from Roving with Lalah. I've been to many places I wouldn't have, had it not been for this feature. I've also met many people I wouldn't have and that's the most important thing for me," he said, before recounting how he and his friend and photographer, Norman Grindley, would head into Jamaica's almost untouched interior without any knowledge of where they were going or what they would find. They were equally unaware that they would be seeking out those persons and communities that now fill the pages of Lalah's first book.
"Over the years I've learnt how to start conversations and how to get the most out of people, how to get them to open up to me," explained Lalah in his usual polite, unassuming way that had me willing to tell him my life story!
Maybe you'll feel the same way when Roving with Lalah - Slices of Jamaican Life comes to Sangster's Book Stores and other book stores islandwide in early November. Better yet, you can pre-order the book now at www.ianrandlepublishers.com. According to Lalah, he has been humbled by the number of persons asking about ordering his book and those who are already awaiting their copies in the mail.
