Trinis triumph at Bocas Lit Fest

Monique Roffey and Barbara Jenkins were the winners of the third OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, for the best book of 2012, and the inaugural Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize presented in association with the Bocas Lit Fest for the best work by an emerging writer respectively.

The winners were announced on Saturday evening at a ceremony at the Hotel Normandie, St Ann’s. The prize shortlist consisted of the winning books in the three genre categories – poetry (Fault Lines, by Kendel Hippolyte of St Lucia; fiction (Roffey’s Archipelago); and non-fiction (The Sky’s Wild Noise: Selected Essays by Rupert Roopnaraine of Guyana).

Roffey’s novel was also judged the best overall book of 2012. The 2008 flood in Maraval that demolished her brother’s home was the inspiration for her prize-winning work that beat This Is How You Lose Her by Pulitzer prize-winner from the Dominican Republic, Junot Diaz. Lawrence Scott’s Light Falling On Bamboo, a fictionalised account of the life of this country’s Victorian master watercolourist, Michel Jean Cazabon, was another hot favourite for the OCM Bocas Prize.

Barbara Jenkins who started writing after retiring from a long teaching career took home a valuable prize, the Hollick Arvon Prize, that includes a cash component, one year’s mentoring by an established writer, one week’s full immersion in writing with the leading creative writing organisation in Britain, Arvon, a chance to be agented, and time in London to meet literary practitioners and to network.

The prize-giving ceremony was one of the highlights of the annual festival that is always held during the final weekend of April and includes a full children’s festival. At the ceremony a new prize for writing for young adult writing was announced. Entries for the first Burt Award for Caribbean Literature will open on May 13.