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
Chanka Maharaj (Self-Published) by Satnarine Balkaransingh is an authorized biography of the late T&T sportsman, political figure, wrestler, and religious leader. Encompassing the span of Maharaj’s life and accomplishments, Balkaransingh’s nonfiction book is a detailed, meticulous study, incorporating archival photographs, articles, and recorded testimonials in its contents. Attention is paid to Maharaj’s legacy as a stalwart defender of the rights of working class citizens, and his commitment to the legalisation of adult suffrage. Balkaransingh’s analysis extends into reflections on why Maharaj remains overshadowed in contemporary accounts of the nation’s builders.
Before the Rain (Peepal Tree Press) by Christine Craig combines poetry and short fiction to evoke a palpable sense of Jamaica in all its power and history, with an emphasis on both people and place. Spanning Jamaica, the American South, and London, the hybrid collection focuses on dislocation, memory, and trauma, examining the lives both assembled and ruptured through cross-cultural, socioeconomic divides. The rewards of Before the Rain are anchored in its duality of genre: its prose offers sharp-eyed musings; its poems pierce through the complacency of much modern living.
About to Fall Apart (Faber & Faber) by Ashley Hickson-Lovence is an identity story steeped in urgency, its events unspooling over the course of a single weekend. The novel’s protagonist, sixty-six year old mixed-race Aidy, was raised in a supportive adoptive household, and yearns to know more about his birth mother. Aidy’s fragmented relationships with his own three children are juxtaposed against his quest to learn, definitively, about the place and people he can call his own. Written in a fluid and expressive style, the novel pulses with compelling energy.
The Impossibility of Nothingness (Peepal Tree Press) by Ian McDonald ventures beyond the borders of the expected, in this latest offering from the nonagenarian Guyanese writer, who claims T&T as an indelible part of his creative consciousness. As with his recent collections, The Impossibility of Nothingness focuses on the ephemerality of life, while also making room for the necessity of remarking keenly on what the poet observes. Mortality is rendered here with convincingness, alongside the imperative to affix each lament, each ode of gratitude, to its corresponding place in history.
Honey (Random House) by Imani Thompson unwinds a psychological horror story wound tautly in the spool of feminine rage and ambition. Thompson, a London-based writer of Jamaican and Scottish descent, presents a calculating, complex protagonist in the form of Yrsa, a PhD student at Cambridge who tires of the duplicitous, dangerous ways of men. In Yrsa’s murderous journey towards fulfilment, Honey scrapes at the underside of racialized injustice in academia, revealing rot at the core of hallowed institutions. In propulsive prose, the novel careens towards an unpredictable, highly satisfying end.
Bocas Couva comes to Lisas Gardens Community Centre
“All Together Now” remains the focus of this year’s Bocas Couva festival, on Saturday 18 July at Lisas Gardens Community Centre. Bocas Couva 2026, the first in a series of four one-day community literary and cultural festivals across Trinidad and Tobago, is presented by Methanex Trinidad.
Writers slated to appear at Bocas Couva include Kevin Jared Hosein, Portia Subran, Tricia Chin, Vashti Bowlah, and Kenneth Ramchand. Children’s writers and storytellers will also be on hand, including Jody White, Katrina Khan-Roberts, Miranda Dookran, Shalon Kasha Joseph, Salim Rampersad, C.S. Binnie, Crystal-Marie Sealey, and Michelle Govia.
Bocas Couva’s Spoken Word Competition, drawing on the talents of secondary school-aged youth in Couva and its environs, will form an essential component of the one-day festival. Participating youth will have the opportunity to workshop their pieces on the very day, in advance of their presentations, during a teaching session led by multidisciplinary artist and former multiple National Poetry Slam finalist, Javaughn Forde.
Bocas Couva, presented by Methanex Trinidad, is free and open to the public.
Books and Brews at The Writers Centre
On Saturday 11 July, Aarti Gosine, author of A Place to Call Home, will read from and discuss her work at an upcoming Books and Brews event, hosted at The Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair, by Paper Based Bookshop and Sleepy Cat Cafe. A Place to Call Home is a historical fiction novel inspired by the 1884 Hosay Riots (also referred to as the Jahaji Massacre) in San Fernando, Trinidad. In an intimate gathering, Gosine will read excerpts from her novel and discuss its motivations, inspirations, and links to the present day. Copies of A Place to Call Home will be available from Paper Based Bookshop for purchase.
Books and Brews with Aarti Gosine is free and open to the public.
Reading Lime at the Botanic Gardens
On Sunday 12 July, Bacano Bookshop celebrates Caribbean Literature Day with a free Reading Lime at the Royal Botanic Gardens, hosted in collaboration with Bocas Lit Fest and Paper Based Bookshop.
All are welcome to join in a quiet community reading experience from 11 AM to 1 PM. Attendees can RSVP via @bacanobookshop on Instagram, and bring their books, mats, folding chairs or blankets.
Bocas Academy Presents Jumpstart July
For one focused week this month, running Monday 13 to Monday 20 July, attendees from home and around the world can reanimate their creative writing practice with Jumpstart July. A virtual bootcamp designed to offer encouragement, build community, and inspire new drafts of fiction and nonfiction work, Jumpstart July will be delivered via newsletter and Zoom, and is appropriate for authors of all skill levels and publication histories. Writers experiencing midyear creative slumps are encouraged to attend the course, which includes focused prompts, an accountability group, exercises designed to pull participants out of a writing rut, a specially curated reading list, and more.
Further information and registration details for the Bocas Academy’s Jumpstart July are available via https://academy.bocaslitfest.com/, or by emailing [email protected].
Caribbean Bestsellers
Paper Based Bookshop (Instagram: @paperbasedbookshop) shares its top-selling Caribbean titles for the past month:
1. One Year of Ugly, by Caroline Mackenzie
2. Che Lovelace, by Che Lovelace
3. Tall Is Her Body, by Robert de la Chevotière
4. Steel Pan Vibrations – Unlocking the Human Mind, by Savitri Rampersad
5. Honey, by Imani Thompson
