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THE JOHNSON AND AMOY ACHONG CARIBBEAN WRITERS PRIZE

Sharma Taylor is the winner of the 2019 Prize

Sharma Taylor (Jamaica) was announced as the winner of the inaugural Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize at the 2019 NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

The shortlist, in alphabetical order, is:

Heather Barker (Barbados)
Subraj Singh (Guyana)
Sharma Taylor (Jamaica)

The Caribbean’s only award for emerging writers, the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize was dedicated in 2019 to fiction. In 2020 and 2021, the prize will be open to writers of non-fiction and poetry, respectively.

The nine writers previously longlisted for the 2019 prize are:

Heather Barker (Barbados)
Lelawatee Manoo-Rahming (Trinidad and Tobago/The Bahamas)
Ira Mathur (Trinidad and Tobago)
Otancia Noel (Trinidad and Tobago)
A-dZiko Simba Gegele (Jamaica)
Subraj Singh (Guyana)
Portia Subran (Trinidad and Tobago)
Sharma Taylor (Jamaica)
Racquel Williams (Barbados)

Johnson & Amoy Achong

THE JOHNSON AND AMOY ACHONG CARIBBEAN WRITERS PRIZE is sponsored by philanthropist Dr. Kongshiek Achong Low and administered by The Bocas Lit Fest and Arvon.

This new prize is named after Johnson and Amoy Achong and commemorates their lives as loyal and hardworking citizens of Trinidad and Tobago whose children have continued to contribute to the building of the country. Dr. Achong Low is a medical practitioner and Chairman of Medcorp Limited.

The Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize is an annual award, which allows an emerging Caribbean writer living and working in the Anglophone Caribbean to devote time to advancing or finishing a literary work, with support from an established writer as mentor. The prize is offered across three literary genres: fiction in 2019, non-fiction in 2020, and poetry in 2021.

The first winner of the Johnson and Amoy Chong Caribbean Writers Prize will be announced in 2019. The Prize was open for fiction entries from June to September 2018.

This Prize replaces the Hollick Arvon Prize Caribbean Writers Prize, which ran between 2013 and 2015. The inaugural winner of the Hollick Arvon Prize in 2013 was Barbara Jenkins of Trinidad and Tobago [fiction], followed by Diana McCaulay of Jamaica [non-fiction] in 2014, and Trinidadian Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné [poetry] in 2015. At the 2018 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, two of these past awardees, Jenkins and Boodoo-Fortuné, launched their new books that resulted from winning the Hollick Arvon Prize.

The Prize

In its first year, 2019, The Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize will be awarded for a prose fiction work in progress. The winner will be announced in April 2019 at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

The Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize consists of:

  1. a cash award of $20,000TT (or the equivalent in US dollars).
  2. a year’s mentoring by an established writer
  3. travel to the United Kingdom to attend a one-week intensive Arvon creative writing course at one of Arvon’s internationally renowned writing houses
  4. three days in London to network with editors and publishers, hosted by Arvon, in association with the Free Word Centre and the Rogers, Coleridge & White literary agency.

To be eligible for entry, a writer must:

  1. be of Caribbean birth or citizenship, living and working in the Anglophone Caribbean and writing in English
  2. be over the age of 18 by 30 September, 2018
  3. Not have previously published a book-length work in the genre in which they are making a submission.

Download the 2019 prize guidelines and entry form for more information. The 2019 prize for fiction is closed. The prize will open for non-fiction entries in June 2019.