OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature explained

OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
Awarded For:Books by Caribbean writers
Presenter:NGC Bocas Lit Fest
Sponsor:One Caribbean Media
Location:Trinidad and Tobago
Website:The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature

OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, inaugurated in 2011 by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest,[1] is an annual literary award for books by Caribbean writers published in the previous year.[2] It is the only prize in the region that is open to works of different literary genres by writers of Caribbean birth or citizenship.[3]

The prize award is US$10,000 and is sponsored by One Caribbean Media.[2] The shortlisted nominees are awarded $3,000. Books may be entered in three categories: poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction.[2] The judges select the best book in each genre category, which three books form the shortlist for the prize, from which the overall winner is then chosen. The overall winner of the prize is announced at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Winners and longlisted nominees

YearWinnerWorkLonglisted nomineesRef(s)
2011White Egrets (poetry) [4] [5] [6] A255881541[7]
2012Is Just a Movie (fiction)
  • Tessa McWatt, Vital Signs (fiction)
  • Keith Jardim, Near Open Water (fiction)
  • Merle Collins, The Ladies are Upstairs (fiction)
  • Fawzia Kane, Tantie Diablesse (poetry)
  • Loretta Collins Klobah, The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman (poetry, winner)
  • Shara McCallum, This Strange Land (poetry)
  • Basil Ince, Olympian (non-fiction)
  • Caryl Phillips, Colour Me English (non-fiction)
  • Godfrey Smith, George Price: A Life Revealed (non-fiction, winner)
[8] [9] [10]
2013Archipelago (fiction)
  • Vahni Capildeo, Dark and Unaccustomed Words (poetry)
  • Kendel Hippolyte, Fault Lines (poetry, winner)
  • Anthony Kellman, South Eastern Stages (poetry)
  • Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her (fiction)
  • Lawrence Scott, Light Falling on Bamboo (fiction)
  • Anthony C. Winkler, God Carlos (fiction)
  • Jemima Pierre, The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race (non-fiction)
  • Rupert Roopnarine, The Sky’s Wild Noise: Selected Essays (non-fiction, winner)
  • Andrea Stuart, Sugar in the Blood: A Family’s Story of Slavery and Empire (non-fiction)
[11] [12] [13] [14]
2014As Flies to Whatless Boys (fiction) [15] [16]
2015Sounding Ground (poetry) [17] [18]
2016The Pain Tree (fiction) [19] [20] [21]
2017Kei MillerAugustown (fiction) [22] [23] [24] [25]
2018Curfew Chronicles (fiction)
  • Helen Klonaris, If I Had the Wings (fiction)
  • Jacob Ross, Tell No-One About This (fiction)
  • Shara McCallum, Madwoman (poetry, winner)
  • Sonia Farmer, Infidelities (poetry)
  • Kamau Brathwaite, Liviticus (poetry)
    No non-fiction titles were selected this year.
[26] [27] [28]
2019High Mas (non-fiction)
  • Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, Doe Songs (poetry, winner)
  • Loretta Collins Klobah, Ricantations (poetry)
  • Richard Georges, Giant (poetry)
  • Dionne Brand, Theory (fiction)
  • Robert Antoni, Cut Guavas (fiction)
  • Anthony Joseph, Kitch (fiction)
  • Dionne Brand, Theory (fiction, winner)
  • Selwyn R. Cudjoe, The Slave Master of Trinidad: William Hardin Burnley and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World (non-fiction)
  • Peter A. Roberts, A Response to Enslavement: Playing Their Way to Virtue (non-fiction)
[29] [30] [31] [32]
2020Epiphaneia (poetry)
  • Lauren K. Alleyne, Honeyfish (poetry)
  • Vahni Capildeo, Skin Can Hold (poetry)
  • Edwidge Danticat, Everything Inside (fiction, winner)
  • Curdella Forbes, A Tall History of Sugar (fiction)
  • Sara Collins, The Confessions of Frannie Langton
    Tessa McWatt, Shame on Me (non-fiction, winner)
  • Erna Brodber, Moments of Cooperation and Incorporation: African American and African Jamaican Connections, 1782–1996 (non-fiction)
  • Aaron Kamugisha, Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition (non-fiction)
[33] [34] [35] [36] [37]
2021The Dyzgraphxst (poetry)
  • Celia Sorhaindo, Guabancex (poetry)
  • Mervyn Taylor, Country of Warm Snow (poetry)
  • Maisy Card, These Ghosts Are Family (fiction, winner)
  • Ingrid Persaud, Love After Love (fiction)
  • Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch (fiction)
  • Andre Bagoo, The Undiscovered Country (non-fiction, winner)
  • Katherine Agyemaa Agard, of colour (non-fiction)
  • Gordon Rohlehr, Musings, Mazes, Muses, Margins (non-fiction)
[38] [39] [40]
2022Pleasantview (fiction)
  • Jason Allen-Paisant, Thinking with Trees (poetry, winner)
  • Desiree C. Bailey, What Noise Against the Cane (poetry)
  • Monica Minott, Zion Roses (poetry)
  • Myriam J. A. Chancy, What Storm, What Thunder (fiction)
  • Cherie Jones, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (fiction)
  • Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (non-fiction)
  • Kei Miller, Things I Have Withheld (non-fiction, winner)
  • Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime and Dreams Deferred (non-fiction)
2023Ayanna Lloyd BanwoWhen We Were Birds (fiction)
  • Michael Fraser, The Day-Breakers (poetry)
  • Anthony Joseph, Sonnets for Albert (poetry, winner)
  • Pamela Mordecai, de book of Joseph (poetry)
  • Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King (fiction)
  • Jasmine Sealy, The Island of Forgetting (fiction)
  • Ira Mathur, Love the Dark Days (non-fiction, winner)
  • Patricia Joan Saunders, Buyers Beware: Insurgency and Consumption in Caribbean Popular Culture (non-fiction)
  • Godfrey Smith, Diary of a Recovering Politician by Godfrey Smith (non-fiction)
2024t.b.a.t.b.a.

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/literary-festival-award-prize-best-book-year-6.2.450697.97f6fe7944 "Literary festival to award prize for best book of the year"
  2. http://www.bocaslitfest.com/awards/the-ocm-bocas-prize-for-caribbean-literature/ The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
  3. http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20150906/news/ocm-bocas-prize-enters-sixth-year "OCM Bocas Prize enters sixth year"
  4. Web site: Three Caribbean writers on 2011 OCM Bocas Prize shortlist . bocaslitfest.com . 8 May 2012.
  5. Web site: Derek Walcott wins OCM Bocas Prize . Repeating Islands . 2 May 2011 . 30 September 2012.
  6. "Government Congratulates Hon. Derek Walcott for Winning Inaugural Literature Award." Targeted News Service [TNS], 9 May 2011. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 30 September 2012. Gale Document Number: GALE
  7. "Walcott wins Caribbean prize" (2011), Caribbean Today, p. 13. Database: Ethnic NewsWatch. ProQuest document ID: 870629941
  8. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2012/programme/ocm-bocas-prize/ "The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2012"
  9. https://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/local/lovelace-cops-us-bocas-prize/article_a957f6db-c5a5-578e-b89f-eb844d5aa3f5.html "Lovelace cops US$10,000 Bocas prize"
  10. Web site: Lovelace savours Lit Fest victory . 29 April 2012 . . 8 May 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120504004832/http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Lovelace_savours_Lit_Fest_victory-149447475.html . 4 May 2012 . dead .
  11. Julien Neaves, "T&T writer takes top Bocas prize", Trinidad Express Newspapers, 28 April 2013.
  12. Tanya Batson-Savage, "Archipelago by Monique Roffey Cops Bocas Prize 2013", Susumba, 30 April 2012.
  13. News: Trinis triumph at Bocas Lit Fest. Trinidad and Tobago Newsday. 2 May 2013. 13 March 2024.
  14. Web site: Bocas winner's cover goes Underground . . Mark Fraser . 14 July 2013 . 27 December 2023.
  15. Web site: Top three for OCM Bocas Prize named . . 31 March 2014 . 3 April 2014.
  16. Anna Ramdass, "‘Whatless Boys’ wins it for writer Antoni", Trinidad Express Newspapers, 27 April 2014.
  17. http://www.bocaslitfest.com/2015/ocm-bocas-prize-2015-shortlist/ "Top three books named for 2015 OCM Bocas Prize"
  18. Wayne Bowman, "St Lucian poet wins OCM Bocas Prize", Trinidad Express Newspapers, 3 May 2015.
  19. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2016/03/24/announcing-2016-ocm-bocas-prize-shortlist/ "Announcing The 2016 OCM Bocas Prize Shortlist"
  20. http://www.bocaslitfest.com/awards/the-ocm-bocas-prize-for-caribbean-literature/ "2016 OCM Bocas Prize Shortlist"
  21. http://www.bocaslitfest.com/2016/olive-senior-wins-2016-ocm-bocas-prize/ "Olive Senior Wins The 2016 OCM Bocas Prize"
  22. Web site: The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2017 . bocaslitfest.com . 27 April 2017.
  23. Web site: Bissessarsingh among 3 authors in Bocas final round . trinidadexpress.com . 25 March 2017 . 10 May 2020.
  24. https://trinidadexpress.com/news/local/j-can-kei-miller-wins-ocm-bocas-prize/article_19c0926f-f9a8-512b-bb46-0721979010c0.html "J’can Kei Miller wins OCM Bocas prize"
  25. https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-04-29/jamaican-kei-miller-wins-ocm-bocas-prize "Jamaican Kei Miller wins OCM Bocas Prize"
  26. Michael Mondezie, "Bocas winner: It’s an incomparable feeling", Daily Express, Trinidad, 29 April 2018.
  27. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2018/05/02/tts-jennifer-rahim-wins-ocm-bocas-prize/ "T&T’S JENNIFER RAHIM WINS OCM BOCAS PRIZE"
  28. Apphia Barton, "Who reallywon the OCM Bocas Prize?", ApphiaBartonWrites, 7 May 2018.
  29. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2019/awards/ocm-bocas-prize/ "Kevin Browne makes history as the first-ever overall winner to earn the prize for non-fiction"
  30. https://sta.uwi.edu/news/releases/release.asp?id=21912 "UWI Lecturer wins Overall 2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature"
  31. https://www.tv6tnt.com/news/7pmnews/kevin-browne-wins-ocm-bocas-prize/article_3873e94c-6f87-11e9-ab9c-abf59025c2a4.html "Kevin Browne Wins OCM Bocas Prize"
  32. Keino Swamber, "TT’s Kevin Adonis Browne wins OCM Bocas Prize", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, 5 May 2019.
  33. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2020/05/02/richard-georges-wins-2020-ocm-bocas-prize/ "Richard Georges wins the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize"
  34. Paula Lindo, "Poet wins top OCM Bocas Prize", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, 3 May 2020.
  35. https://trinidadexpress.com/features/local/epiphaneia-storms-through-to-the-top/article_73798d72-8cd6-11ea-ac64-2fc4ac0ce64d.html "‘Epiphaneia’ storms through to the top: Richard Georges wins OCM Bocas Prize"
  36. Kamal Haynes, "Local author wins top Caribbean literary award", BVI News, 5 May 2020.
  37. Zarrin Tasnim Ahmed, "In a Virgin Islands first, Georges wins Bocas prize, BVI Beacon, 6 May 2020.
  38. https://www.bocaslitfest.com/awards/ocm/ "OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature"
  39. Web site: St Lucian-born poet wins OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Loop. 26 April 2021.
  40. Web site: Saint Lucian Wins OCM Bocas Prize. St Lucia Times. 26 April 2021.

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