Austin Clarke, Barbados born, Canada based, is a celebrated novelist, short-story writer and journalist. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rogers Communication Writers Trust Prize, the W.O. Mitchell Prize Giller Prize for fiction, the Trillium Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Best Book Award for Canada and the Caribbean region and the Commonwealth Writers Award for best book. He is Chair of the final cross-genre judging panel of the OCM Bocas Prize 2105.