The Bocas Lit Fest returns this May with a packed programme of events for its 15th edition, with the theme “Always Coming Home.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s annual festival of books, writers, and ideas is also the Anglophone Caribbean’s biggest annual literary event. Details of the 2025 programme — running from Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 May — were announced at a media conference this morning, at The Writers Centre in St. Clair, Port of Spain.
The main festival venue will once again be the National Library in downtown Port of Spain, with satellite events at other venues around the city. The programme includes 50 events for adult, teenage, and child audiences, and over 100 writers, speakers, and performers.
“We often describe our annual festival as a kind of homecoming for Caribbean writers and readers,” said Festival and Programme Director Nicholas Laughlin. “Over the past 15 years, the Bocas Lit Fest has grown into the biggest annual assembly of writers from the Caribbean and its several diasporas. So in a very tangible sense, ‘Always Coming Home’” reminds us of our festival’s role as Caribbean literature’s family reunion.”
Jean-Claude Cournand, CEO of the Bocas Lit Fest said, “Bocas Lit Fest has been invested in creating a sense of space for Caribbean literature in the world and to do that effectively we are also creating a sense of space for ourselves. Like Mr. Mohan Biswas from Naipaul’s famous work A House for Biswas, we have been on a journey to find a space to call home – and with it a sense of independence and permanence.”
On the strategic direction of the Bocas LitFest, Cournand added, “the model you see, a literature festival, publishing house, bookshop, cafe, an event space, workshop space and spaces for sublease all form part of our vision for a sustainable home for Caribbean literature.”
Other speakers at the launch included Marina Salandy-Brown, President of the Bocas Lit Fest, and representatives of key sponsors and partners: Videsh Maharaj, Permanent Secretary (Ag.) in the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts; Marcus Chin-Aleong, Group Marketing Manager, One Caribbean Media (OCM); Jason Julien, Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer, First Citizens; and Jasmin Simmons, Director – Heritage Library Division of the National Library and Information Services (NALIS).
The festival’s opening night on 1 May will bring “a once-in-a-lifetime event,” paying tribute to eminent author Earl Lovelace in an early commemoration of his 90th birthday, at the Central Bank. Professor Kenneth Ramchand will deliver the first annual Earl Lovelace Lecture, alongside readings from Lovelace’s books, music by Freetown Collective, the opening of a specially curated art exhibition, and the debut of Lovelace’s first book of poems.
Another 2025 milestone will be the awarding of the 15th annual OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. The prize ceremony, a festival highlight, comes on Saturday 3 May, and the Bocas Lit Fest also includes a “birthday party” for the prize in the form of an evening event at the Big Black Box, celebrating the 14 past winners of the prize through dramatised readings and music.
The list of participating authors includes some familiar faces from past editions of the Bocas Lit Fest, like internationally celebrated authors Erna Brodber, Marlon James, and Anthony Vahni Capildeo — the Trinidadian-Scottish poet who was recently named winner of a prestigious Windham Campbell Prize. Other festival guests include Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of a new biography of Audre Lorde; debut novelists Justin Haynes, Berkley Semple, and Christina Cooke; Trinidadian-Canadian author Kai Thomas, winner of the Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Award; and the UK-based Trinidadian Lawrence Scott, an already acclaimed fiction writer who has now published his first book of poems.
Audiences can look forward to the doubleheader launch of new novels by Jamaican Olive Senior and Trinidadian Celeste Mohammed — both former winners of the OCM Bocas Prize — whose books will make their world debut at the festival.
Alongside festival sessions focused on recent books of fiction and poems, the programme also includes a high-level “Big Ideas” discussion panel, asking how contemporary geopolitics and the agendas of global leaders shape urgent questions about citizenship, national sovereignty, and redefinitions of human rights. Speakers will include Elizabeth Solomon, CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General for Foreign and Community Relations; EU Ambassador Peter Cavendish; international security consultant Richard Lynch; and Kellie Magnus, Executive Director of the Caribbean Culture Fund.
Elsewhere, festival-goers will find a series of writing workshops and free Writers First seminars, aimed at early-career authors; a series of films inspired by Earl Lovelace; the popular Extempo Debate and Ole Mas Competition; BackChat, a rousing showcase of LGBTQI+ writers hosted by CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice; and the launch of Writing for Our Lives, a new anthology on climate justice, published by The Cropper Foundation in partnership with Peekash Press.
The festival’s closing event will be the 2025 First Citizens National Poetry Slam Finals, with the theme “Bring It Home” — where some of T&T’s best performance poets will compete for the grand slam title.
The full festival programme is online at bocaslitfest.com, with frequent updates on social media (@bocaslitfest on Facebook, Instagram, and X). Festival organisers encourage the public to join the Bocas Lit Fest mailing list for regular updates on festival news and opportunities for writers.
OCM, First Citizens, the JB Fernandes Memorial Trust, and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts are main sponsors of the 2025 Bocas Lit Fest; the British Council, the Windham Campbell Prizes, Murphy Clarke, the Massy Foundation, and The UWI are sponsors.
