Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

Of the 11 writ­ers, six are from T&T.

In 2016, a year that was promis­ing and trail­blaz­ing for T&T writ­ers, this felt like less of a co­in­ci­dence and more of a por­tent of pow­er­ful, lo­cal­ly-made suc­cess in sto­ry­telling.

T&T writ­ers have dom­i­nat­ed the in­ter­na­tion­al awards field, most no­tably with Vah­ni Capildeo's win of the 2016 For­ward Prize for Po­et­ry for her col­lec­tion, Mea­sures of Ex­pa­tri­a­tion.

The prize, which car­ries a win­ner's purse of �15,000, has been won three years in a row by Caribbean writ­ers: Clau­dia Rank­ine in 2014; Kei Miller in 2015; Capildeo in 2016.

Lance Dowrich emerged the win­ner of the Caribbean arm of last year's Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize, and po­et Danielle Boodoo-For­tun� scooped up the 2016 Wasafiri New Writ­ing Prize for Po­et­ry.

Caribbean writ­ing is mov­ing more solid­ly in­to the in­ter­na­tion­al award main­stream, and no one could be fault­ed for nam­ing T&T a safe horse in that race.

With­in awards that fo­cus on the re­gion, too, T&T writ­ers made 2016 their do­main.

Two win­ners of the CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture–Tami­ka Gib­son in first place; Danielle YC Mc­Clean in third–are from T&T.

Last year's Small Axe Lit­er­ary Com­pe­ti­tion was very near­ly a na­tion­al clean sweep, with three out of four prizewin­ning spots earned by T&T writ­ers Por­tia Sub­ran, Soyi­ni Ayan­na Forde, and Ayan­na Gillian Lloyd. Re­gion­al prizes award the Caribbean's best of show, and T&T keeps bring­ing home the blue rib­bons.

Awards weren't the on­ly high­light of the past writ­ing year for Tri­nis and To­bag­o­ni­ans: our rep­re­sen­ta­tion at lit­er­ary events both at home and abroad was high-fly­ing, too.

Both the Brook­lyn Book Fes­ti­val and the Mi­a­mi Book Fair fea­tured T&T writ­ers on their main fes­ti­val pro­grammes through strate­gic part­ner­ships with the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest.

Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize 2013 co-win­ner Sharon Mil­lar took her col­lec­tion of sto­ries The Whale House on tour in the UK: the mul­ti-event read­ing se­ries, pro­duced by Re­nais­sance One, saw Mil­lar share ex­cerpts from her short sto­ries at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter, the Lon­don Lit­er­a­ture Fes­ti­val, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing and more.

Ap­pear­ances at fairs, fes­ti­vals and pub­lic read­ings have be­come in­creas­ing­ly valu­able ad­di­tions to a writer's life: many a venue both near and far bore wit­ness to a T&T scribe's pass­port stamp in 2016.

Even with­out trav­els and ac­co­lades, what is per­haps most grat­i­fy­ing of all is the fact that our writ­ers haven't stopped pub­lish­ing.

In what many thought would be a detri­men­tal year for lo­cal read­ing, with the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a 12.5 per cent Vat on books, it seems our lit­er­ary cul­ture has on­ly ral­lied un­der pres­sure.

His­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh's fame is com­pa­ra­ble to a Trinida­di­an ca­lyp­son­ian or To­bag­on­ian crick­eter; the book launch­es he held last year were packed to the rafters in both north and south Trinidad.

Bisses­sars­ingh's rock­star-tier pop­u­lar­i­ty is proof that books can not on­ly reach the mass­es, but speak di­rect­ly to their needs, pre­oc­cu­pa­tions and de­sires.

Oth­er lo­cal writ­ers have tapped in­to this vein, too, and pro­duced books that span both his­toric and con­tem­po­rary con­cerns.

A cross-sec­tion of these 2016 ti­tles in­clud­ed Danielle De­lon's A Hand­book of Trinidad Cook­ery 1907; Judy Ray­mond's The Colour of Shad­ows; Kei­th Row­ley's From Ma­son Hall to White­hall, and nu­mer­ous oth­ers.

From self-pub­lished mem­oirs to glossy cof­fee ta­ble com­pendi­ums, every­one had a sto­ry to tell.

Whether you want­ed to read about an am­bi­tious To­bag­on­ian's rise to po­lit­i­cal pow­er, or chart the time-test­ed roots of recipes made in Trinidad's British colo­nial kitchens a cen­tu­ry ago, 2016 of­fered pub­li­ca­tions for both those palates and more.

In lit­er­a­ture as in life, T&T has nev­er been a speck in the Caribbean Sea, no mat­ter what out of fo­cus maps would have you be­lieve.

The prowess of our writ­ing con­tin­ues to surge forth in un­cer­tain glob­al cir­cum­stances, when words and their pow­er have nev­er been more im­por­tant.

The Wal­cotts, Lovelaces and Selvons of our gen­er­a­tion are not on­ly alive and well: they made 2016 an ac­tive, vi­brant year in writ­ing, read­ing and pub­lish­ing.

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Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan is a po­et and blog­ger. She writes on books for the Sun­day Arts Sec­tion.