Millar wins Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Trinidadian writer Sharon Millar is co-winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The announcement was made at an event at the Hay Festival this evening, where Sharon and fellow winner Eliza Robertson of Canada were presented with the prize by celebrated author John le Carré. Sharon’s short story “The Whale House” — published this week […]
Fiction – Oonya Kempadoo and Lawrence Scott
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. The driving question that prompted novelist Lawrence Scott towards writing Light Falling on Bamboo was this: “What was Michel-Jean Cazabon’s life like?” From this seemingly simple interrogation, particular threads of an autobiographical influence can be discerned. The novel, which was longlisted for the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for […]
New Talent Showcase – Shivanee Ramlochan
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Well. This is weird, right? When I asked Nicholas Laughlin, the Festival Programme director, how blogging about my own New Talent Showcase reading, held on April 27th, would work, he seemed blissfully unbothered. “Just write about what the experience was like for you,” he said – […]
Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference – A National Literature?
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Fifty years ago, a dynamic series of talks on literature emerged in Edinburgh. A gathering of writers from around the world brought pressing questions surrounding literature’s purpose to the fore, prioritizing these lively, oft-raucous debates and driving conversations that had resonances not just in Scottish letters, […]
One on One – Irvine Welsh
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Margaret Thatcher, Scottish writer Irvine Welsh joked, ought to be heralded as the uncredited ghostwriter of his newest novel, Skagboys: indeed, of his first novel, Trainspotting, too. Maybe, Welsh added with (what we may only hope to be) faux-sobriety, Thatcher ought to receive kudos for the vast majority of his […]
One on One – Olive Senior
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Nary a free seat could be scrounged at Olive Senior’s packed Old Fire Station one on one session, on April 26th, in conversation with 2013 OCM Fiction judging chair, Michael Bucknor. Senior’s life was meant to be lensed beneath the spotlight, but the veteran writer skilfully […]
New Talent Showcase – Sonia Farmer
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Bahamian poet Sonia Farmer, the second of this year’s New Talent Showcase writers, shared readings from her work on April 26th at the Old Fire Station. Farmer is the winner of the 2011 Small Axe Literary Competition for her poetry, and has been published in tongues of […]
One on One – Marina Warner
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. “I needed to write this book, because I had to find out what I had worshipped,” writer and mythographer Marina Warner remarked during her one-on-one discussion with novelist Lawrence Scott on April 25th at the Old Fire Station. The book she spoke of was her recently […]
Fiction – Courttia Newland and Ifeona Fulani
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Sharing their fiction at the Old Fire Station on April 25th, Courttia Newland and Ifeona Fulani read from their works The Gospel of Cane and Ten Days in Jamaica, respectively. The emotional tension in Newland’s novel has been described by multiple sources as fringing on unbearable, a quality evoked […]
New Talent Showcase – Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. There is something special about witnessing new talent being unearthed — but as CAISO advocate and writer Colin Robinson pointed out at this, the first of the 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest New Talent Showcases, Trinidadian poet Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné isn’t as nascent a literary figure as […]
Father Figures – Colin Grant and Hannah Lowe
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Colin Grant and Hannah Lowe have written, respectively, a memoir and a poetry collection that pivot around portraits of their fathers. In their twinned reading session on April 25th, the first post-welcome event of the 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, the pair read generous selections from […]
Festival Welcome – Writers vs. Politicians
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. The Festival Welcomes of each Bocas Lit Fest have been spectacularly well-attended since their inception in 2011, and this year continued (and deepened) that trend admirably: attendees were fairly spilling out of the Old Fire Station on April 25th, including a generous cross-section of our programme […]
Announcing the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature
An exciting global initiative in Young Adult literature is coming to the Caribbean. The Burt Award for Caribbean Literature was launched on April 27, 2013, at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain. Part of a unique global literary award and readership initiative aiming to provide youth everywhere with access to books they […]