BOOK LOVERS, change makers, and the wider public will enjoy a rich programme of discussions, readings, and performances as the 2022 NGC Bocas Lit Fest begins this week. Opening on the evening of April 28, this year’s edition of the Anglophone Caribbean’s biggest literary festival will showcase an impressive line-up of established and emerging writers across 20 online events, all focused on ideas and questions of change.
Now in its 12th year, the festival will be presented virtually to a worldwide audience once again, with events streamed via the Bocas Lit Fest website, YouTube, and Facebook.
Many Caribbean authors have addressed the ways in which the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused us to rethink how we engage with others, and how we connect with the world at large. For some, it has provoked new interests, different approaches to relationships and social justice, to economic adaptability and innovation, and greater awareness of environmental issues.
To chart bold new directions, it’s important to understand your history. On Thursday evening, as the festival opens, viewers are invited to tune in for sessions exploring iconic Caribbean figures of the past whose influence still shapes the present and future. The legacies of the late Guyanese activist Andaiye and Jamaica’s cultural icon Louise Bennett-Coverley will be in the spotlight, followed by a conversation with British biographer John L Williams and scholar Aaron Kamugisha, as they examine the lasting impact of CLR James. Williams’s comprehensive biography C.L.R. James: A Life Beyond the Boundaries offers a new opportunity to consider James as writer, thinker, and mentor.
The power of language to effect change will be in focus on April 29, when Puerto Rican poets Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Amanda Hernández, Urayoán Noel, and Ana Portnoy Brimmer discuss how words and ideas will not be silenced even in times of crisis. Later that evening, in collaboration with the NGO CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice, the line-up will feature a return of the festival’s popular BackChat event. Some of the best-known LGBTQI+ Caribbean and diaspora writers will offer readings and performances on the theme ‘Embracing Power, Making Change’.
Trinidadian writer Ayanna Lloyd Banwo was named one of the ten best first-time novelists of 2022 by the UK Observer. She is a new voice who compels us to consider the stories-past and presentthat still long to be told. Fiction enthusiasts are in for a treat on April 30, as the author joins host Shivanee Ramlochan in a discussion about her acclaimed novel When We Were Birds and how storytelling influences one’s identity and history.
Saturday evening also brings one of the landmark events of the Caribbean’s literary calendar: the award ceremony for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. The finalists for the coveted award – first-time authors Jason Allen-Paisant and Celeste Mohammed, and past OCM Bocas Prize winner Kei Miller – will vie for the top prize of US$10,000. All three will read from their work during the virtual ceremony, which also celebrates the 2022 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award recipients Funso Aiyejina and Merle Hodge, and the two Bocas Emerging Writers Fellows for 2022, Jannine Horsford and Rajiv Ramkhalawan.
A focus on a changing world could never be complete without considering the effects of climate change. On May 1, the festival’s ‘Big Idea’ debate will tackle ‘A Future We Can Live With’, asking how the Caribbean region can respond to the ‘existential threat’ of climate change in the coming decades. Jamaican writer Esther Figueroa, Trinidadian activist Gillian Goddard, and Trinidadian climate consultant Ryan Assiu will map out a sustainable path forward, in this discussion hosted by Omar Mohammed, CEO of The Cropper Foundation.
The festival’s closing event on Sunday 1 May will bring together two beloved Jamaican poets, Olive Senior and Pamela Mordecai, for a conversation with 2021 OCM Bocas Prize winner Canisia Lubrin about how poetry can be a medium for exploring challenging and sometimes difficult ideas.
Also in the mix are a longtime Bocas fixture, Stand and Deliver, an ‘open mic’ series where writers of all levels and genres can share their work, and a new ‘Required Reading’ series where authors of new books discuss their ideas and motivations. Viewers can look forward to appearances by writers like Tiffanie Drayton, author of the hard-hitting memoir Black American Refugee, and Sophie Jai, whose debut novel Wild Fires tells a complicated story of family and loss.
Meanwhile, the 2022 NGC Bocas Lit Fest won’t forget younger readers. April 30 will bring the launch of the NGC Children’s Bocas Lit Fest’s new YouTube channel, Bocas Storytime, offering on-demand programming for audiences under 12-from readalouds to animations to fun workshops, based on Caribbean stories and culture.
All NGC Bocas Lit Fest events are free, and no registration is required. To join, simply tune in on any of the following platforms: www.bocaslitfest. com, www.facebook.com/ bocaslitfest or www.youtube.com/ bocaslitfest.
Visit www.bocaslitfest.com for more information, including the full programme of the 2022 NGC Bocas Lit Fest and a free downloadable festival guide. NGC is the title sponsor of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, OCM, First Citizens, and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts are main sponsors, Massy Foundation and UWI are sponsors.
