Celebrating Caribbean Voices on the BVI Lit Fest 2025
Every November, the tranquil shores of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) play host to a vibrant celebration of literature, phrases, and group: the annual BVI Lit Fest (additionally known as the BVI Literary Arts Pageant). In 2025, the occasion celebrated its fifth version, carrying the theme “Lengthy Story Brief.”
Launched in November 2021 as a part of the Territory’s Tradition and Tourism Month, BVI Lit Fest was created in partnership between the Division of Tradition (British Virgin Islands) and the H. Lavity Stoutt Neighborhood School to place literature, artistic expression and Caribbean voices centre-stage.
Launched in November 2021 as a part of the Territory’s Tradition and Tourism Month, the BVI Lit Fest was created in partnership between the Division of Tradition (British Virgin Islands) and the H. Lavity Stoutt Neighborhood School to place literature, artistic expression, and Caribbean voices centre stage. Over its five-year historical past, it has advanced right into a platform that brings collectively native authors, regional Caribbean voices, and worldwide writers for workshops, panel discussions, readings, signings, and ebook launches.
The pageant sits squarely throughout the BVI’s Tradition and Tourism Month (November) agenda geared toward celebrating the islands heritage and attracting literary-minded guests. Past its core programming, the pageant emphasises the BVI’s cultural id: music and oral historical past, with panels reminiscent of “The Virgin Islands Soundtrack” analyzing how lyrics and storytelling merge when laying naked the intricacies of island life
Lengthy Story Brief
The 2025 version ran from November 6–9 on Tortola, with pre-events together with youngsters’s programming on Virgin Gorda. Among the many stand-out options this yr had been:
- A Writers’ Welcome Reception at Rhythm + Sands, Cane Backyard Bay, the place festival-goers mingled with visiting authors and loved cultural performances.
- “Let’s Discuss Lit” conversations that includes native and worldwide literary voices discussing how storytelling evolves throughout kind and medium.
- A Sundown Tales occasion the place acclaimed authors shared readings and intimate conversations framed by sea and sky.
- Writing with Writers Workshops, overlaying choreopoetry, movie, and publishing, plus a spoken-word showcase at Tortola Pier Park titled “Gentle a Fireplace” for daring new voices.
- The pageant wrapped up on Sunday ninth November with a Ebook Brunch, a refreshed format the place attendees rotated between tables to talk with featured writers in relaxed dialog.
Notable Authors & House-Grown Voices
Whereas lots of the visitor authors hail from throughout the Caribbean and past, the BVI itself boasts wealthy literary expertise. A key determine is Dr. Richard Georges, the primary Poet Laureate of the British Virgin Islands. His most up-to-date assortment, Epiphaneia (2019), received the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
Different outstanding names showing within the 2025 lineup embrace:
- Marsha Massiah, the Founder and Government Director of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Pageant (BCLF), the one U.S. literary pageant devoted completely to Caribbean literature and indigenous storytelling.
- Celeste Mohammed is a Trinidadian lawyer-turned-writer and the writer of Pleasantview which received the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the UK Society of Authors McKitterick Prize for Fiction.
- Tiphanie Yanique, the writer of the novel, Monster within the Center, which was chosen as a US Library of Congress Nice Learn for 2023. All of whom deliver robust regional and diasporic voices into the dialog.
All deliver robust regional and diasporic voices into the dialog.
For 2025, the BVI Lit Fest invitations you to a celebration of tales, huge and small, these of the waves and wind, of migration and reminiscence, of islands and creativeness. With its rising status, wealthy programming, and mix of native and worldwide expertise, this pageant stands as a significant platform for Caribbean literature and tradition.
For 2025, the BVI Lit Fest invitations you to a celebration of tales huge and small these of the waves and wind, of migration and reminiscence, of islands and creativeness. With its rising status, wealthy programming, and mix of native and worldwide expertise, this pageant stands as a significant platform for Caribbean literature and tradition.
Whether or not you’re a reader, author, or just an admirer of phrases and place, the BVI Lit Fest presents an opportunity to step into the narrative of island life. And as home-grown poet Richard Georges reminds us: “The ocean shapes the story, however the story additionally shapes how we stay, pay attention, and turn into.”
The BVI is a British Abroad Territory within the Caribbean