The Bocas Lit Fest has received the keys to the city. His Worship Alderman Chinua Alleyne, Mayor of Port of Spain, presented the honour for “excellence and dedication to our community” at the Awards Ceremony for the 111th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Civic and Municipal Rights of the City of Port of Spain on Thursday 26 June, at the Murchison Brown Auditorium, City Hall.
The citation for the award acknowledged Bocas Lit Fest — the Caribbean’s premier literary festival — as one of our cultural success stories. It noted that the year-round NGO “pursues its mission to nurture citizens, broaden culture, and expand the literary industry: school projects; monthly adult and youth sessions at The Writers Centre in St Clair; The Bocas Academy craft courses; and a partner bookshop that showcases the growing catalogue of Trinidadian authors.”
The Keys were presented to Marina Salandy-Brown, the Founder and President of the Bocas Lit Fest — the person whose vision it was to celebrate, support and grow a new generation of world-renowned writers. Educated in Trinidad and Britain, her trailblazing work in British broadcasting was recognised with an honorary doctorate by the University of Westminster, an honorary Doctor of Letters from The University of the West Indies, and the 2022 Hummingbird Silver Medal, alongside multiple professional and international awards. The citation further noted that “under her stewardship, Bocas continues to celebrate, support, and grow a new generation of writers from Trinidad & Tobago and the wider Caribbean.”
On receiving the keys to the city, Marina Salandy-Brown said, “On behalf of the Bocas Lit Fest, I am honoured and humbled to receive the key to the wonderful city of Port of Spain. Every year for the last 15 years the downtown area and the beautiful National Library have been the home of the festival, and now that we’ve got the key to the city, we look forward to growing the Bocas family even more and to fulfilling our mission of celebrating, developing, and promoting Caribbean literature with love and passion.”
Bocas Lit Fest is held in April each year right in the heart of downtown Port of Spain, in the iconic National Library and adjacent Old Fire Station. For four days that special corner of our capital city, on one edge of Woodford Square, becomes “the festival village”, with thousands of festivalgoers from home and abroad, all keen to hear and see some of the world’s best writers, nearly all of them of Caribbean origin. The Bocas Lit Fest has been named as one of the top 20 literary festivals in the world.
This year, 2025, marks the 15th consecutive year of the festival that hosts an average of 100 festival events, not only in the “village” but on the streets of Port of Spain and in various other city venues, including NAPA and the Central Bank and in bars and performance spots. From its inauguration to now, the festival has served nearly 70,000 patrons for its readings, spoken word, workshops, films, performances and dramatisations, its debates in word and song and its prizes. There have also been festivals in Scarborough and San Fernando and children’s events that travel to all corners of our Republic.
