A bi­og­ra­phy of Be­lize's first Prime Min­is­ter, George Price, is among the books short­list­ed for the 2012 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture. George Price: A Life Re­vealed, writ­ten by Be­lizean politi­cian, colum­nist and at­tor­ney God­frey P Smith, is hailed as a deft ex­plo­ration of George Price's "ec­cen­tric ge­nius and po­lit­i­cal acu­men" by the judges who have se­lect­ed three books from a list of ten to vie for this year's US$10,000 prize.

Al­so on the short list is Trinida­di­an nov­el­ist, play­wright and short-sto­ry writer Earl Lovelace for his sixth nov­el, Is Just A Movie, de­scribed by the judges as "a ta­pes­try of is­land his­to­ry... steeped in place and full of beau­ti­ful­ly re­alised char­ac­ters." The oth­er con­tender is Puer­to Ri­can writer and pro­fes­sor Loret­ta Collins Klobah's book The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman. Judges praised the col­lec­tion as dis­play­ing a "hard-earned ma­tu­ri­ty of po­et­ic spir­it", adding that the ti­tle po­em marks "a tour de force of the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion".

The short­list an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day, with these three books, al­ready win­ners in their own cat­e­gories, go­ing on to vie for the over­all prize which will be pre­sent­ed on April 28 dur­ing the sec­ond an­nu­al NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, April 26-29. OCM Bo­cas Prize, founder and Fes­ti­val Di­rec­tor, Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, said: "Again this year we have pre­vi­ous­ly un­pub­lished au­thors lin­ing up with ac­knowl­edged lit­er­ary stars for the prize. God­frey P Smith is a new­com­er and Loret­ta Collins Klobah's col­lec­tion of po­et­ry is her first.

The prize is bring­ing great writ­ing by new and es­tab­lished writ­ers to the at­ten­tion of a wider au­di­ence, which is what we set out to do." Last year's prize was won by No­bel Lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott, for his most re­cent po­et­ry col­lec­tion, White Egrets. Tiphanie Yanique's de­but short sto­ry col­lec­tion How To Es­cape from a Lep­er Colony won the fic­tion cat­e­go­ry and Ed­widge Dan­ti­cat's Cre­ate Dan­ger­ous­ly the non-fic­tion cat­e­go­ry.

The OCM Bo­cas Prize, now in its sec­ond year, is open to books pub­lished in the pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar year by writ­ers of Caribbean birth or cit­i­zen­ship. The 2012 pan­el of judges boasts a gath­er­ing of em­i­nent au­thors and aca­d­e­mics based both in the Caribbean and abroad and is chaired by the Bar­ba­di­an writer, George Lam­ming.

The four-day 2012 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest is prin­ci­pal­ly spon­sored by The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go with sup­port­ing spon­sor­ship from OCM and KFC. Oth­er spon­sors in­clude the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion, First Cit­i­zens, Courts and Flow. The 2012 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture short­list:

Po­et­ry

The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman, by Loret­ta Collins Klobah (Puer­to Ri­co)

Fic­tion

Is Just A Movie, by Earl Lovelace (Trinidad and To­ba­go)

Non-fic­tion

George Price: A Life Re­vealed, by God­frey P Smith (Be­lize)