Haitian-Canadian-American writer Myriam J.A. Chancy has won the 2025 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for her novel Village Weavers, published by Tin House. This marks the first time a Haiti-born author has taken the top prize, awarded annually to the best book by a Caribbean writer.
Described by the judges as “a compellingly ambitious and beautifully executed narrative,” Village Weavers explores friendship, identity, and political upheaval across decades and continents.
Chancy will receive US$10,000 sponsored by One Caribbean Media. This year’s poetry and nonfiction winners were Anthony Vahni Capildeo (Polkadot Wounds) and Dionne Brand (Salvage: Readings from the Wreck).
This year marks a double milestone for the Bocas Lit Fest — its 15th annual festival and the 15th edition of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
Poetry winner
Polkadot Wounds, by Anthony Vahni Capildeo (Carcanet)
Fiction winner
Village Weavers, by Miriam J.A. Chancy (Tin House)
Nonfiction winner
Salvage: Readings from the Wreck, by Dionne Brand (Knopf Canada/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
About The Prize
The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature is an annual award for literary books by Caribbean writers, first presented in 2011. Books are judged in three categories: poetry; fiction — both novels and collections of short stories; and literary nonfiction — including books of essays, biography and autobiography, history, current affairs, travel, and other genres, which demonstrate literary qualities and use literary techniques, regardless of subject matter.
There is a panel of three judges for each genre category, who determine category shortlists and winners.
The three category winners are then judged by a panel of four judges — consisting of the chairs of the category panels and the prize chair — who determine the overall winner.
The author of the book judged the overall winner will receive an award of US$10,000. The other category winners will receive US$3,000
Head Judge
Erna Brodber (Jamaica)
Poetry Chair
Alexis Pauline Gumbs (USA)
photo credit: Sufia Ikbal-Doucet
Poetry Judge
Adalber Salas Hernández (Venezuela/Mexico)
photo credit: Elisa Diaz Castelo
Poetry Judge
Alycia Pirmohamed (UK)
Fiction Chair
Denise deCaires Narain (UK)
Fiction Judge
Fleur Sinclair (UK)
Fiction Judge
Celeste Mohammed (T&T)
Nonfiction Chair
Rinaldo Walcott (Canada)
Nonfiction Judge
Gabrielle Hosein (T&T)
photo credit: Abigail Hadeed
Nonfiction Judge
Catherine Lord (USA)
Past Winners
2024
2023
Overall and fiction winner: When We Were Birds, by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Poetry winner: Sonnets for Albert, by Anthony Joseph
Nonfiction winner: Love the Dark Days, by Ira Mathur
2022
Overall and fiction winner: Pleasantview, by Celeste Mohammed
Poetry winner: Thinking With Trees, by Jason Allen-Paisant
Nonfiction winner: Things I Have Withheld, by Kei Miller
2021
Overall and poetry winner: The Dyzgraphxst, by Canisia Lubrin
Fiction winner: These Ghosts Are Family, by Maisy Card
Nonfiction winner: The Undiscovered Country, by Andre Bagoo
2020
Overall and poetry winner: Epiphaneia, by Richard Georges
Fiction winner: Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat
Nonfiction winner: Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, by Tessa McWatt
2019
Overall and nonfiction winner: High Mas: Carnival and the Poetics of Caribbean Culture, by Kevin Adonis Browne
Poetry winner: Doe Songs, by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
Fiction winner: Theory, by Dionne Brand
2018
Overall and fiction winner: Curfew Chronicles, by Jennifer Rahim
Poetry winner: Madwoman, by Shara McCallum
There was no nonfiction winner for 2018, as the judges did not believe any of the eligible books “could be held to represent the best of regional writing”
2017
Overall and fiction winner: Augustown, by Kei Miller
Poetry winner: Cannibal, by Safiya Sinclair
Nonfiction winner: Virtual Glimpses into the Past/A Walk Back in Time: Snapshots of the History of Trinidad and Tobago, by Angelo Bissessarsingh
2016
Overall and fiction winner: The Pain Tree, by Olive Senior
Poetry winner: Wife, by Tiphanie Yanique
Nonfiction winner: The Gymnast and Other Positions, by Jacqueline Bishop
2015
Overall and poetry winner: Sounding Ground, by Vladimir Lucien
Fiction winner: A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James
Nonfiction winner: Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal, by Olive Senior
2014
Overall and fiction winner: As Flies to Whatless Boys, by Robert Antoni
Poetry winner: Oracabessa, by Lorna Goodison
Nonfiction winner: Writing Down the Vision: Essays and Prophecies, by Kei Miller
2013
Overall and fiction winner: Archipelago, by Monique Roffey
Poetry winner: Fault Lines, by Kendel Hippolyte
Nonfiction winner: The Sky’s Wild Noise: Selected Essays, by Rupert Roopnaraine
2012
Overall and fiction winner: Is Just a Movie, by Earl Lovelace
Poetry winner: The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman, by Loretta Collins Klobah
Nonfiction winner: George Price: A Life Revealed, by Godfrey P. Smith
2011
Overall and Poetry winner Derek Walcott – White Egrets
Nonfiction winner: Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
Fiction winner: Tiphanie Yanique, How to Escape a Leper Colony