UK friends and book lovers! The NGC Bocas Lit Fest — the Caribbean’s favourite festival of words, stories, and ideas — is coming your way, with a roving series of events featuring stellar writers from across the Caribbean! Join us in five cities across the UK for a showcase of contemporary Caribbean literary talent, including our highlight event — a day-long programme at the British Library in London with two dozen writers!
Save the date and book your tickets as the Bocas Lit Fest goes to the United Kingdom for the Bocas UK Tour 2022!
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TOUR SCHEDULE
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Wednesday 26 October | 6 pm
A conversation with Celeste Mohammed and Amanda Smyth | Bocas UK Tour 2022 in Leicester
Venue: Leicester Central Library, Bishop Street
Celeste Mohammed, winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, joins Peepal Tree Press author and fellow Trinidadian writer Amanda Smyth for a conversation about contemporary writing from Trinidad and Tobago
In partnership with Jacaranda Books and Leicester Libraries
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Thursday 27 October | 6 pm
An evening of new Caribbean writing | Bocas UK Tour 2022 in Norwich
Venue: National Centre for Writing, Dragon Hall
Featuring Celeste Mohammed, Canisia Lubrin, Barbara Jenkins, Karen Lord, and Celia Sorhaindo
A literary showcase featuring five of the Caribbean’s most exciting contemporary voices. With Celeste Mohammed, Canisia Lubrin, Barbara Jenkins, Karen Lord, and Celia Sorhaindo. Chaired by Nicholas Laughlin, Bocas Lit Fest Festival Director. Presented in partnership with the National Centre for Writing, Norwich.
Writing across genres from novels to short stories, memoirs to poetry, these five writers from four Caribbean countries represent a diversity of voices, ideas, and linguistic backgrounds. The Caribbean they explore in their books may be partly familiar and partly strange, and their stories and themes tackle universal questions: family and history, identity and love, boundary crossings of all kinds, and the purpose of writing itself.
Join us for a lively evening of stories, poetry, ideas, conversation — and food!
Note: Only accessible to an in-person audience
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Saturday 29 October | 10.30 am to 8.30 pm
Bocas UK Tour 2022 at the British Library
Venue: British Library, 96 Euston Road, London
One day, two dozen writers from across the Caribbean! Fiction, poetry and memoir, readings, and conversation, plus a musical excerpt from The Playboy of the West Indies and a lively London Literary Lime to end the day, co-hosted by Renaissance One.
Session 1: Ways In The World | 11 am to 12 pm
Session 2: The Trouble With History | 12.30 to 1.30 pm
Session 3: An Island Is A World | 2 to 3 pm
Session 4: Don’t Call It Magic | 3.30 to 4.30 pm
Session 5: Mothers, Fathers, Daughters, Sons | 5 to 6 pm
Session 6: Beyond Every Boundary | 6.30 to 7.45 pm
Session 7: Musical excerpts from The Playboy of the West Indies plus a London Literary Lime, hosted by Renaissance One | 8 to 8.30 pm
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Monday 31 October | 6 pm
Bocas Poets at the University of Leeds Poetry Centre
Venue: Workshop Theatre
Jason Allen-Paisant (Thinking with Trees), winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, joins Shivanee Ramlochan (Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting), Malika Booker (Pepper Seed) and Adam Lowe (Patterflash) in conversation with Emily Zobel-Marshall (Bath of Herbs) — with readings by all five poets
Presented in partnership with the University of Leeds Poetry Centre and Peepal Tree Press
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Thursday 3 November | 6 pm
Bocas UK Tour 2022 at the Belfast International Arts Festival
Venue: No Alibis Bookstore, 83 Botanic Avenue
Prize-winning fiction writers Celeste Mohammed and Jacob Ross at the Belfast International Arts Belfast explore the complexities of the contemporary Caribbean.
Co-hosted by the John Hewitt Society
