Over twelve consecutive days during the festivities of Christmas, we’ll celebrate Caribbean literature on our social media with “12 Days of Reading”!
At the top of the current international agenda are the extreme perils of climate change, and the Caribbean archipelago is particularly endangered by the increasing pace of global warming. In 12 Days of Reading, 14-25 December, over a dozen authors and readers read extracts from works that explore the Caribbean’s rich landscapes and celebrate its enormous diversity.
The readings range over much loved classic works and newly published writing and are intended to encourage an appreciation for what remains, and even find what solutions to some of our environmental challenges may lie in our literature.
The readings begin with award-winning Jamaican writer and environmental activist Diana McCaulay. Her latest novel Daylight Come was published in September 2020 by Peepal Tree Press and was a finalist for the 2019 CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Young Adult Literature, administered by the Bocas Lit Fest.
This is the second year of 12 Days of Reading but it is the first time a 5-year old reader will be taking part. Coryn Clarke is probably the youngest published Trinidadian writer. She will be reading from her latest book Chronicles of Coryn: Adventures in St Kitts and Nevis, released in 2021. Senator Clarence Rambharath, writer and filmmaker Tracy Assing, and Caribbean marine biologist Dr. Diva Amon are among the other readers.
In thanking the readers and writers, Bocas Lit Fest director Marina Salandy-Brown said, “Christmas is about stories, and few things can beat the pleasure of being read to. We are very pleased that writers have freely given us permission for their writing to be heard, whether reading it to us themselves or by indulging the happy readers who chose them. 12 Days of reading also reminds us that stories are grounded in reality, however imagined they may appear and can take us to a new level of awareness.”
Tune in to Facebook or Instagram over December 14 – 25!