Un­der the Trees at the Nor­mandie, St Ann's, on April 27, two writ­ers re­ceived the pre­mier prizes of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest and the val­i­da­tion of the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al lit­er­ary world.

Monique Rof­fey, au­thor of Sun Dog and the sex mem­oir With the Kiss­es of His Mouth, was award­ed the US$10,000 (about TT$64,200) OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture for her third nov­el, Arch­i­pel­ago. The idea for the nov­el was sparked by a cat­a­stroph­ic flood that dec­i­mat­ed her broth­er's house, Rof­fey said in a short doc­u­men­tary video shown at the cer­e­mo­ny. Dur­ing her ac­cep­tance speech, she reded­i­cat­ed the book to her broth­er and to her moth­er. Rof­fey was short­list­ed for the Or­ange Prize in 2010 and the En­core Award in 2011 for her sec­ond nov­el, The White Woman on the Green Bi­cy­cle.

St Lu­cian po­et Kendel Hip­poly­te was award­ed the Po­et­ry Prize for his col­lec­tion Fault Lines, and Guyanese writer Ru­pert Roop­naraine the Non-fic­tion Prize for The Sky's Wild Noise, a se­lec­tion of es­says.

First-time short-fic­tion writer Bar­bara Jenk­ins, whose first book Sic Tran­sit Wag­on was launched at the fes­ti­val, won the Hol­lick Ar­von Caribbean Writ­ers Prize. The prize is worth �10,000 (about TT$99,000) and will al­low the win­ner to work on or com­plete a lit­er­ary work with a year's men­tor­ing from an es­tab­lished writer, net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties with ed­i­tors and pub­lish­ers, a week-long Ar­von cre­ative writ­ing course and a cash prize of �3,000.

Jenk­ins has won mul­ti­ple awards for her short sto­ries, in­clud­ing the Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize for the Caribbean Re­gion in 2010 and 2011, and the Wasafiri New Writ­ing Prize in 2011.

"It takes a vil­lage to raise a child," said a vis­i­bly moved Jenk­ins af­ter ac­cept­ing the prize, im­plic­it­ly ac­knowl­edg­ing the wide net­work of sup­port that had helped her to this achieve­ment. She was one of five oth­er T&T writ­ers short­list­ed for the prize, a list that in­clud­ed T&T writer Sharon Mil­lar, Sun­day Arts Sec­tion ed­i­tor and T&T Guardian colum­nist Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni, and Bermu­dan writer An­gela Bar­ry.

The Hol­lick Ar­von 2014 prize will be open to works of non-fic­tion, and the 2015 in­stal­ment to col­lec­tions of po­et­ry.

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