Author: Richeline Joe

Richeline Christine Joe, born and raised in Curaçao, has lived in the Netherlands for over 15 years where she completed her Masters study in Psychology and PhD in Social Sciences. She currently lives in Curaçao and is amongst others a writer of short stories and poems. She is one of the two winners of the 2023 writers contest of the Transatlantic Relatives digital platform, aimed at connecting Ghana and Curaçao through their common history. She gets her main inspiration for writing during nature walks, hikes, reading and just by observing and listening to people. In 2022 she was awarded a royal decoration as Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau. Richeline Joe is one of the two Curaçaoan artists selected to travel to Ghana and perform at the Pa Gya! Literary Festival.

Residence in Ghana to Perform, Explore, Reflect

The ancestral voices are reaching out to us, the people of Curaçao and Ghana,
They show us new opportunities to relate, to exchange, to share.
Pa Gya 2023, Wintertuin Curaçao 2023:
Solid first steps in our literary reconnection journey.

Guides of our march

Ghana has interested me since I was young. I visited Ghana in 2016 where I participated among others in a village outreach program. I also visited several parts of Ghana (a few of them I mentioned in my story) and focused on contacts with the locals. In my story I provide a historical picture of the slave trade as experienced by a particular person narrated by descendants of this person. I see great opportunities for both countries once the relationship between Ghana and Curacao is tightened. These opportunities are based on my own experiences while in Ghana. In my story I elaborate on such opportunities.