Since the inaugural award was presented in 2011, The OCM Bocas Prize has longlisted over 90 books by Caribbean writers, raising their international profile, and recognised 29 winners, many of whom have gone on to win other major international writing prizes.
2020 OCM Bocas Prize Winners
POETRY & OVERALL WINNER: Epiphaneia, by Richard Georges (Out Spoken Press)
FICTION WINNER: Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
NON-FICTION WINNER: Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, by Tessa McWatt (Scribe).
LONGLIST:
2019 OCM Bocas Prize Winners
NON-FICTION & OVERALL WINNER: High Mas: Carnival and the Poetics of Caribbean Culture, by Kevin Adonis Browne (University Press of Mississippi)
POETRY WINNER: Doe Songs, by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné (Peepal Tree Press)
FICTION WINNER:Theory, by Dionne Brand (Penguin Random House Canada)
LONGLIST:
2018 OCM Bocas Prize Winners
FICTION & OVERALL WINNER: Curfew Chronicles, by Jennifer Rahim (Peepal Tree Press)
POETRY WINNER: Madwoman, by Shara McCallum (Peepal Tree Press/Alice James Books)
NON-FICTION: There was no non-fiction winner for 2018, as the judges did not believe any of the eligible books “could be held to represent the best of regional writing.”
LONGLIST
2017 OCM Bocas Prize Winners
FICTION & OVERALL WINNER: Augustown, by Kei Miller (Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
POETRY: Cannibal, by Safiya Sinclair (University of Nebraska Press)
NON-FICTION: Virtual Glimpses into the Past/A Walk Back in Time: Snapshots of the History of Trinidad and Tobago, by Angelo Bissessarsingh (Queen Bishop Publishing)
2016 OCM Bocas Prize Winners
FICTION and OVERALL PRIZE: Olive Senior: The Pain Tree (Cormorant Books)
POETRY: Tiphanie Yanique: Wife (Peepal Tree Press)
NON-FICTION: Jacqueline Bishop: The Gymnast and Other Positions (Peepal Tree Press)
LONGLIST:
2015 OCM Bocas Prize winners
POETRY and OVERALL PRIZE: Sounding Ground by Vladimir Lucien (Peepal Tree Press)
FICTION: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Riverhead)
NON-FICTION: Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal by Olive Senior (UWI Press)
LONGLIST:
2014 OCM Bocas Prize winners
FICTION and OVERALL PRIZE: As Flies to Whatless Boys by Robert Antoni (Akashic Books)
POETRY: Oracabessa by Lorna Goodison (Carcanet)
NON-FICTION: Writing Down the Vision: Essays and Prophecies by Kei Miller (Peepal Tree Press)
LONGLIST:
2013 OCM Bocas Prize winners
FICTION and OVERALL PRIZE: Archipelago, by Monique Roffey (Simon and Schuster)
POETRY: Fault Lines, by Kendel Hippolyte (Peepal Tree Press)
NON-FICTION: The Sky’s Wild Noise: Selected Essays, by Rupert Roopnaraine (Peepal Tree Press)
LONGLIST:
2012 OCM Bocas Prize winners
FICTION and OVERALL PRIZE: Is Just a Movie, by Earl Lovelace (Faber)
POETRY: The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman, by Loretta Collins Klobah (Peepal Tree Press)
NON-FICTION: George Price: A Life Revealed, by Godfrey P. Smith (Ian Randle Publishers)
LONGLIST:
2011 OCM Bocas Prize winners
POETRY and OVERALL PRIZE: White Egrets, by Derek Walcott (Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
FICTION: How to Escape from a Leper Colony, by Tiphanie Yanique (Graywolf)
NON-FICTION: Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, by Edwidge Danticat (Princeton)
LONGLIST:
