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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Bocas goes to Harlem

by

20140709

For the third year run­ning, the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, T&T's an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val, will host an event show­cas­ing Caribbean writ­ing tal­ent in New York.

Three high­ly re­gard­ed new au­thors will par­tic­i­pate in a read­ing and dis­cus­sion ti­tled Com­ing from Far: Caribbean Writ­ers on Home and Oth­er­ness, pre­sent­ed by the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest at the 2014 Harlem Book Fair World Fic­tion Fes­ti­val, to­mor­row.

A re­lease said win­ner of the 2011 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Fic­tion, Tiphanie Yanique of the US Vir­gin Is­lands, heads the line-up with her de­but nov­el, Land of Love and Drown­ing, which is pub­lished by Pen­guin/River­head to­day but has al­ready re­ceived rave ad­vanced re­views. Her first short-sto­ry col­lec­tion, How To Es­cape From a Lep­er Colony, won the in­au­gur­al OCM Bo­cas Prize.

Yanique will be joined by Bar­ba­di­an-Amer­i­can writer A Nao­mi Jack­son, whose de­but nov­el, Who Don't Hear Will Feel, was re­cent­ly signed by Pen­guin Press. Jack­son is a grad­u­ate of the pres­ti­gious Iowa Writ­ers' Work­shop, as is the event's third writer, Stephen Narain, who was born in the Ba­hamas to Guyanese par­ents. Narain, who was fea­tured as a New Tal­ent Show­case writer at the 2012 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing his first book. The event will be mod­er­at­ed by the Bo­cas fes­ti­val pro­gramme di­rec­tor, Nicholas Laugh­lin.

"Pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing new writ­ers is a cru­cial part of what the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest does," Laugh­lin said in the re­lease. "We put emerg­ing writ­ers in the spot­light at our an­nu­al fes­ti­val in Port-of-Spain. We set up op­por­tu­ni­ties for Caribbean writ­ers to par­tic­i­pate in oth­er lit­er­ary events around the world, and we run writer de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes to iden­ti­fy and en­cour­age new tal­ent from across the re­gion."

"Tiphanie, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first Bo­cas in 2011, is wide­ly con­sid­ered a ris­ing star of Caribbean writ­ing," Laugh­lin added. "Nao­mi and Stephen are ex­cit­ing new­com­ers who are al­ready win­ning prizes for their fic­tion. All three are part of a gen­er­a­tion of emerg­ing writ­ers who are re­shap­ing Caribbean lit­er­a­ture."

More in­fo

The 2014 World Fic­tion Fes­ti­val is a part­ner­ship be­tween the long­stand­ing Harlem Book Fair and Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty's School of the Arts. Com­ing from Far: Caribbean Writ­ers on Home and Oth­er­ness, takes place at the Jerome Greene Hall, Room 101/103, Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law, 435 West 116th Street, New York from 1.30 pm to 3 pm.


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