Literature as community will be in focus at the 2026 Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago’s annual festival of words, stories, and ideas, which launched its programme today.
This year’s edition of the Anglophone Caribbean’s largest literary festival, set to run from Thursday 30 April to Sunday 30 May, has the theme “All Together Now”.
“The entire reason for the Bocas Lit Fest is to bring people together,” said Nicholas Laughlin, festival and programme director, at this morning’s media launch. “Writers and readers, writers and other writers, readers and other readers, and even people who don’t consider themselves readers, but love a good story or conversation.”
The festival promises a packed schedule of events, including readings and discussions, workshops and performances, music, drama, the popular Stand and Deliver open mic event, plus activities for youth and children. Once again, the main venue will be the National Library and Old Fire Station in downtown Port of Spain, with evening events at other venues across the capital city.
“Literature, stories, and ideas are for everyone, and we have always striven to make the Bocas Lit Fest as accessible as possible to the broadest possible audience,” added Laughlin. “Books, and the access they give to the life of the mind, should never be limited to a privileged few.”
The media launch was attended by numerous festival sponsors and partners, and was the occasion for the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Bocas Lit Fest and the National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS), formalising a close relationship dating back to the inaugural festival in 2011.
Paula Greene, NALIS executive director, welcomed attendees to the landmark National Library building. Other speakers included representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Community Development, One Caribbean Media (sponsor of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature), the JB Fernandes Memorial Trust, and Amplia, the festival’s new official livestream partner. Energy company Methanex Trinidad Limited was also represented, announcing a new partnership which will allow the Bocas Lit Fest to stage a series of one-day community festivals across T&T later in 2026.
Laughlin thanked these and other sponsors and partners for their tangible and intangible support, at what he called “the most difficult time in the past thirty years to try to fundraise for arts and culture in Trinidad and Tobago.”
“The work of the Bocas Lit Fest has never been more urgent than at the very present,” he said. “Books, stories, and poems aren’t just a pleasurable way to pass the time. More than ever, we need citizens who are informed enough about our past and present to be able to imagine our future; who can think critically and outside the limits of stereotype; who can discern fact from fiction.”
The media launch was also the occasion for the announcement of the three genre category winners of the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize, recognising the best books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction published in the past year by Caribbean authors. Winning in the respective categories are The World After Rain by St. Lucia-born Canisia Lubrin (poetry); Ibis by Trinidad-born Justin Haynes (fiction); and The Snag: A Mother, a Forest, and Wild Grief, by Guyana-born Tessa McWatt (nonfiction). All three authors will attend the 2026 festival, and one of the three will be named winner of the overall prize at a ceremony on Saturday 2 May. The winner will receive US$10,000 courtesy of sponsor One Caribbean Media.
Other programme highlights include an expanded series of free Writers First seminars, aimed at early-career authors; a Friday-night “Kaiso Conversation” in which the members of 3canal will discuss the art of lyric writing; sessions focused on memoir and biography; and a Big Ideas panel debating the future of Caribbean regionalism.
Another panel, presented in partnership with the National Museum and Art Gallery, will tackle issues of cultural heritage, decolonisation, and restitution. Several events focus on literary translation, including a creative workshop, and the Hispanophone Caribbean will be represented by writers supported by the Embassies of Colombia and Spain.
Other visiting authors include Margaret Busby, the eminent UK-based publisher and editor, who recently debuted a new book covering her career in the Black British cultural scene; the Trinidad-born poet Cheryl Boyce Taylor; Jamaican-British poet and memoirist Raymond Antrobus; and the debut Jamaican-Canadian novelist Christina Cooke. Dozens of T&T writers are also in the lineup, with approximately 150 programme participants, including writers of many genres and diverse levels of experience.
Friday 1 May brings a special day-long programme of events and activities for youth, with children’s activities throughout the day on Saturday 2 May. And the festival will have its traditional grand finale at the National Poetry Slam Finals on the night of Sunday 3 May, returning this year to the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA).
The full festival programme is online at bocaslitfest.com, where members of the public can also register for festival workshops and to participate in the Stand and Deliver open mic.
The JB Fernandes Memorial Trust, OCM, and the Ministry of Culture and Community Development are main sponsors of the 2026 Bocas Lit Fest; the festival is also sponsored by the Massy Foundation, the British Council, the ANSA McAL Foundation, and The University of the West Indies. Amplia is the festival’s official livestream partner and AVIT Support Ltd is the official technology partner.
