THE Bocas Lit Fest returns this May with a packed programme of events for its 15th edition, with the theme “Always Coming Home.”
Trinidad and Tobago’s annual festival of books, writers and ideas is also the Anglophone Caribbean’s biggest annual literary event. Details of the 2025 programme – running from Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 May – were announced at a media conference on March 26, at The Writers Centre in St Clair, Port of Spain.
The main festival venue will once again be the National Library in downtown Port of Spain, with satellite events at other venues around the city. The programme includes 50 events for adult, teenage, and child audiences, and over 100 writers, speakers, and performers.
“We often describe our annual festival as a kind of homecoming for Caribbean writers and readers,” said festival and programme director Nicholas Laughlin in a news release on March 26.
“Over the past 15 years, the Bocas Lit Fest has grown into the biggest annual assembly of writers from the Caribbean and its several diasporas. So in a very tangible sense, ‘Always Coming Home’ reminds us of our festival’s role as Caribbean literature’s family reunion.”
Other speakers at the launch, the release said, included Newsday columnist //Marina Salandy-Brown, president of the Bocas Lit Fest, and representatives of key sponsors and partners: Videsh Maharaj, Permanent Secretary (Ag.) in the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts; Marcus Chin-Aleong, group marketing manager, One Caribbean Media (OCM); Jason Julien, group deputy chief executive officer, First Citizens; and Jasmin Simmons, director – Heritage Library Division of the National Library and Information Services (NALIS).
Chin-Aleong said, “For 15 years, the Bocas Lit Fest has been more than just an event; it has been a movement. It has nurtured emerging writers, celebrated stablished voices, and provided a space for the Caribbean literary community to thrive. As a proud sponsor of the OCM Bocas Prize, the OCM Group is committed to supporting this mission. We believe in the power of literature to inspire, to challenge, and to unite.”
The festival’s opening night on May 1 will bring “a once-in-a-lifetime event,” paying tribute to eminent author Earl Lovelace in an early commemoration of his 90th birthday, at the Central Bank. Prof Kenneth Ramchand will deliver the first Earl Lovelace Lecture, alongside readings from Lovelace’s books, music by Freetown Collective, the opening of a specially curated art exhibition and the debut of Lovelace’s first book of poems.
Another 2025 milestone will be the awarding of the 15th annual OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. The prize ceremony, a festival highlight, comes on Saturday, May 3, and the Bocas Lit Fest also includes a “birthday party” for the prize in the form of an evening event at the Big Black Box, celebrating the 14 past winners of the prize through dramatised readings and music.
The list of participating authors includes some familiar faces from past editions of the Bocas Lit Fest, like internationally c
