Bocas Lit Fest at 14

“Making a space for Caribbean stories and voices – here at home and in the world at large – is at the very core of our mission, our ethos, our passion, and our everyday work at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest,” the festival’s programme director Nicholas Laughlin said on its website.

Over its 14-year existence the festival has given greater visibility to the Caribbean’s established and aspiring authors.

This year’s events began on April 26, starting with a discussion with Vincentian-Canadian author H Nigel Thomas about his 1993 debut novel, Spirits in the Dark. That was done in partnership with the Canadian High Commission and was held at the Writers Centre, Alcazar Street, Port of Spain.

Celebrating Caribbean LGBTQI+ Voices returned to the festival’s calendar and was an evening of poetry and music from some of Trinidad and Tobago’s LGBTQI+ artistes.

On April 26, Laughlin will welcome people to the festival at a ceremony at the Old Fire Station, Port of Spain, from 10 am.

The Bocas Lit Fest has dubbed today as Fantastic Friday. Today’s events will also include Barbadian author Karen Lord whose latest novel The Blue, Beautiful World was recently longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kevin Jared Hosein, 2024 Winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction; Caribbean-Canadian Premee Mohamed; Jamaican-Canadian Zalika Reid-Benta; and Nigerian-British Irenosen Okojie, founder of the Black to the Future festival in the UK.

Other Fantastic Friday events include writing workshops – one aimed specifically at secondary-school students and a New Talent Showcase event featuring four up-and-coming TT authors of the fantasy genre: Dixie-Ann Belle, Jolanda Charles, Janine Mendes-Franco and Vindhar Suraj, the Lit Fest said.

The We Lit! Travelling Journal Showcase is a feature of Fantastic Friday. The exhibition will spotlight the writing and storytelling abilities of secondary-school students and a chapbook will be launched, the Lit Fest said in a media release.

More than 150 performers, writers and speakers from TT are expected to participate in this year’s festival, the Commonwealth Foundation Creatives Facebook page said.

Haitian-American novelist and short-story writer Edwidge Danticat is among the special guests at Bocas Lit Fest 2024, along with Trinidad-born Canadian poet and novelist Dionne Brand, among others.

On April 27, the winners of the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize and the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award will be announced. The OCM Prize will recognise the best books of poetry, fiction and literary non-fiction over the past year and the Henry Swanzy Award will be given to someone for distinguished service to Caribbean letters.

The OCM genre prize winners were already announced, with Kevin Jared Hosein winning for fiction with Hungry Ghosts; Nicole Sealey won the poetry prize with The Ferguson Report: An Erasure; and Safiya Sinclair won non-fiction with How to Say Babylon: A Memoir.

That afternoon, from 2.30-3.30 pm, TT-born, UK-based writer, artist and academic Ingrid Persaud will share from her new novel, The Lost Love Songs of Boysie. Persaud was the winner of the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her first novel was Love After Love.

Shortly after that, on the same day, from 3.30-4.30 pm, the 2022 winner of the International Booker Prize Geetanjali Shree will share about her work, Tomb of Sand with Ira Mathur also at the Old Fire Station.

Extempo and ole mas are also in focus on April 27. This year’s theme is Quarrelling with History. Black Sage and Dion Diaz will face off at the Hart Street arcade of the library from 4.30 pm.

On April 28, Newsday’s editorial consultant Judy Raymond will facilitate one of the festival’s Big Ideas discussions, entitled The History We Need.

The First Citizens National Poetry Slam final will end the festival and will be held at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on April 28 from 6.30 pm.

The full festival programme is online at www.bocaslitfest.com.