Welcome to the latest installment of the Bocas Book Bulletin, a monthly roundup of Caribbean literary news, curated by the Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago’s annual literary festival, and published in the Sunday Express.
New Releases
Good Good Loving (Virago) by Yvvette Edwards presents the full span of a matriarch’s long-storied life in loving and childrearing, as told from her deathbed. The tumultuous decades of one British-Caribbean family’s complex, multi-branched tree are revealed through the bedbound mental wanderings of Ellen, who migrated in her youth from Montserrat to the United Kingdom. Ellen’s many years of sacrifice and hard graft are underwritten by her children’s lacklustre estimation of her character — can she somehow, on the verge of death, have the final say?
Here Lies a Ghost (Scholastic Press) by Shakirah Bourne puts a Barbadian spin on a classic ghost tale, combining an adolescent hazing ritual with the island’s fraught colonial past. Jermaine, a science enthusiast already saddled with unpopular traits, is urged by his school’s athletic posse, the Turbo Jets, to enter the cemetery’s notoriously haunted Chase Vault. What Jermaine leaves the crypt with is more than he bargained for — Bourne alternates storytelling styles while probing deep questions of social manipulation, loneliness, mixed-race identities, and found family.
Duels (Seagull Books) by Néhémy Dahomey, translated from the French by Nathan H. Dize, presents Haiti in 1842, gripped by financial crisis, struggling to pay off the monstrous independence debt imposed by France. Ludovic Possible, a notary in the town of Boën, founds a schoolhouse equipped to teach children both literacy and practical skills, but his vision is upended by a series of duels plaguing Boën. Through a kaleidoscopic cast of characters, Dahomey’s tautly-plotted novel ruminates on sovereignty, education, and the perilous road to self-determination.
Looting Hummingbirds: Selected Poems of Daniel Thaly (Papillote Press), edited by Mark Andrews and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, reintroduces readers to the bilingual work of a poet once heralded as the “prince of Antillean poetry” in France. Thaly, born in 1879 in the then-British colony of Dominica, wrote work immersed in that island’s natural landscapes, its flora and fauna. His writing might be termed eco-poetry today, for its examination of the ties that bind humans to their non-human counterparts, revealing a communal sensibility among all living things.
Interposition (McClelland & Stewart) by Kaie Kellough takes the form of a long poem, rummaging in — and writing with resistance to — the many bewildering artificialities of digital communications shaping how we speak, think, and interact. Large segments of the book were written during 2021, when the mandatory seclusions of the COVID-19 pandemic compounded language’s insufficiencies to bridge the gaps left by no human touch. Rather than racing his reader to conclusions, the movements in Kellough’s poem are expansive, inviting curiosity to sit next to bewilderment.
2026 Bocas Lit Fest programme launched
The Bocas Lit Fest, the Anglophone Caribbean’s biggest annual celebration of books and writers, is returning for its 16th edition, from Thursday 30 April to Sunday 3 May. The packed programme of events for adults, teens, and children is once again based at the National Library and Old Fire Station in downtown Port of Spain, with evening events at other locations. Audiences will experience a time-tested mix of readings and discussions, performances, workshops and seminars, music, drama, the Stand & deliver open mic, and other exciting sessions, with the 2026 National Poetry Slam as the concluding event on the night of 3 May. Approximately 150 writers, speakers, and performers will join the festival stage, ranging from international luminaries to debut T&T authors.
Most events are free and open to all; information about events requiring registration or tickets is available on the festival website, bocaslitfest.com.
Three authors compete for 2026 OCM Bocas Prize
Books by authors ranging from a Trinidad-born debut novelist to already acclaimed writers with roots in St. Lucia and Guyana have won the genre categories of the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, sponsored by One Caribbean Media, owner of the Trinidad and Tobago Express newspaper, TV6, and the OCM radio network.
The World After Rain: Anne’s Poem, the fourth book by Canada-based St. Lucian Canisia Lubrin, is the winner of the poetry category. Lubrin previously won the overall 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for her book The Dyzgraphxst.
The winner of the fiction category is the novel Ibis, the debut book by US-based Trinidadian Justin Haynes.
The third winner for 2026, in the nonfiction category, is The Snag: A Mother, a Forest, and Wild Grief, by Guyana-born, UK-based Tessa McWatt — who also won the nonfiction category of the Prize in 2020, for her memoir Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging.
Lubrin, Haynes, and McWatt will now compete for the overall Prize, to be announced at the 2026 Bocas Lit Fest. The annual OCM Bocas Prize, awarded this year for the 16th time, recognises the best books published by authors of Caribbean birth or citizenship. It is considered the region’s most distinguished literary award, with a cash prize of US$10,000 for the overall winner and US$3,000 for the other genre category winners.
Celeste Mohammed wins the 2025 Hope Prize
Emerging victorious from 2,501 global entries submitted across 90 countries, Celeste Mohammed — winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature — has scooped the 2025 Hope Prize, which confers a cash value of AUD$10,000. Mohammed won for her short story, “Plenty Time”. The story, alongside other shortlisted entries, will be published in an anthology by Simon & Schuster Australia, with 100 per cent of its profits going to CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education.
Caribbean Bestsellers
Paper Based Bookshop (Instagram: @paperbasedbookshop) shares its top-selling Caribbean titles for the past month:
1. Unstitching Silence, edited by Shivanee Ramlochan and Lucy Evans
2. The House in Bacolet, by David Lambert
3. Ever Since We Small, by Celeste Mohammed
4. One Year of Ugly, by Caroline Mackenzie
5. Essays on the Chinese Diaspora In The Caribbean, edited by Walton Look Lai
