All of us on the Bocas Lit Fest team are shocked and deeply saddened by the death of writer Trinidadian writer Jennifer Rahim on 13 March, 2023. Jennifer was a poet, fiction writer, scholar, teacher, mentor, and winner of the 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for her brilliant book Curfew Chronicles. It was a privilege for us every time she stepped onto the Bocas stage — she brought “moments of sheer grace, and numinous revelations at every turn,” as Lorna Goodison wrote of Curfew Chronicles.
It will be a long time before we come to terms with her untimely loss. The Bocas Lit Fest team sends condolences to her family and friends, her colleagues and former students at The University of the West Indies St. Augustine campus, her publishers at Peepal Tree Press, and Jennifer’s many readers. We hope her own words, and the essence of herself written into her poems and prose, can offer some consolation.