A monthly roundup of news about Caribbean books and writers, presented by the Bocas Lit Fest.
New Releases
The House in Bacolet (Peepal Tree Press), the debut novel by T&T-born David Lambert, is both an intimate portrait of a marriage and a compelling exploration of cultural difference, set in the contemporary Caribbean. It opens with a British couple, Hugh and Julia, arriving in Tobago, having bought a former church to convert into a residence. They quickly become entangled with — and increasingly dependent on — a friendly local. But the lasting consequences of a violent colonial history are impossible to escape, and despite their genuine good intentions, Hugh and Julia learn how the sins of the past shape the realities of the present.
This Is the Only Kingdom (Algonquin Books), the first novel by Jaquira Díaz, is a portrait of family and community set in a working-class neighbourhood in Puerto Rico. Maricarmen and her daughter Nena struggle to make a life for themselves, supported by their neighbours after the death of Nena’s father — until a murder investigation triggers betrayal and mistrust. Described by its publisher as “a powerful love letter to mothers, daughters, and the barrios that make them,” This Is the Only Kingdom was longlisted for the 2025 Centre for Fiction First Novel Award.
The World After Rain: Anne’s Poem (McClelland & Stewart), the third collection of poems by St. Lucia-born Canisia Lubrin, is an “incandescent” elegy for the poet’s mother, meditating on love and grief, memory and history. “The poet refracts the realm of contemporary life to reveal the blistering paradox of its private and public entanglements,” says the publisher. Lubrin — winner of the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature — continues to break through formal boundaries in these poems that speak to the biggest questions of our time in language both intimate and searching.
Other Wild (Peepal Tree Press) by Emily Zobel Marshall is the second poetry collection by the writer of French Caribbean and British heritage. Here the living natural world — forests, rivers, mountains — is both real landscape and metaphor for intense spiritual and emotional wildness, and the restless quest for personal sovereignty. Closely observed and breathtakingly imagined, Zobel Marshall’s poems explore the human and inhuman compulsion to stray and trespass across boundaries of joy and heartbreak, possession and loss.
Cricket’s First Revolutionary: Frank Worrell’s Political War Against Colonialism in the West Indies (Ian Randle Publishers) by UWI Vice Chancellor Hilary McD. Beckles is a biographical study of the celebrated Barbadian cricketer focused on his intellectual and political impact — specifically, his career-long anticolonial activism. Worrell “dismantled the colonial elite order of West Indies cricket and ushered an era of democracy and grassroots liberation,” says the publisher. “No other democratic leader in the West Indies achieved this phenomenal reputation.”
Awards and Prizes
Books by two Caribbean-born writers have been named finalists for Canada’s 2025 Governor General’s Literary Awards. Dante’s Inferno, the latest collection of poems by Jamaican Lorna Goodison, is a finalist in the English-language poetry category, and Mourir est beau by Haitian Stéphane Martelly is a finalist in the French-language poetry category.
Founded in 1936, the annual awards are among the oldest and most prestigious literary prizes in Canada, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. They celebrate works published in Canada, in both official languages, across seven categories. The winners, who will each receive a cash award of CAD$25,000, will be announced on 6 November.
T&T author June Aming has been shortlisted for the 2025 Deborah Rogers Award, with her novel-in-progress “Yellow Is Not for Girls Like Me”. The biennial award champions new voices in fiction and non-fiction, offering a £10,000 prize to an unpublished writer to complete their first book, alongside £3,000 each for two shortlisted authors. The winner will be announced on 4 November. Aming is the only shortlisted author from the Caribbean this year. She was previously a Bocas Breakthrough Fellow in 2024, and an excerpt from her novel was published in early 2025 as a chapbook by Peekash Press.
Upcoming Events
The Bocas Lit Fest will host a special event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Peepal Tree Press, on Saturday 8 November, 5.30 pm, at The Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair. Founded in 1985, Peepal Tree, based in Leeds, is the leading publisher of contemporary Caribbean writing across genres, with a catalogue of hundreds of novels, collections of poetry, short fiction, and essays, memoirs, and literary and cultural criticism. To mark this four-decade milestone, five Peepal Tree authors — James Christopher Aboud, Andre Bagoo, Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, J. Vijay Maharaj, and Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw — will each read from and discuss a book from the Peepal Tree catalogue especially meaningful to them. The event is free and open to all.
The 2025 BVI Lit Fest in Tortola will run from 6 to 9 November, under the theme “Long
Story Short”. The programme of readings, performances, discussions, and workshops will
include such authors as Trinidadian Celeste Mohammed — winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas
Prize for Caribbean Literature — Jamaican Diana McCaulay, and USVI-born Tiphanie
Yanique. Visit bvilitfest.com for details.
Caribbean Bestsellers
