June is ‘Learn Caribbean’ Month
This month marks the seventh annual Learn Caribbean Month, recognised throughout the Caribbean and worldwide.
As readers throughout the globe have interaction with Caribbean books and authors, latest highlights embrace the Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and the Calabash Worldwide Literary Pageant in Jamaica — each held in Might. These festivals featured award-winning writers, celebrated students, and highly effective tales that replicate the richness of Caribbean voices.
#ReadCaribbean is an initiative launched in 2018 by Jamaican-born, Trinidad & Tobago-based Cindy Allman through her E-book of Cinz platform on Instagram. Its goal is to encourage individuals throughout the area to learn, learn extra, learn extensively, and discover Caribbean literature — whereas elevating consciousness of Caribbean literature, Caribbean authors, and authors of Caribbean heritage.
#ReadCaribbean is a time to have a good time the wealthy and numerous literary heritage of the Caribbean and help the voices that carry Caribbean tales to life. June can be celebrated as Caribbean Heritage Month within the US and contains Windrush Day on twenty second June within the UK.
When you’re new to Caribbean literature, we suggest exploring the latest winners of the Bocas Lit Fest, which befell in Trinidad and Tobago, and the esteemed members of the Calabash Worldwide Literary Pageant in Jamaica — each held in Might 2025.
BOCAS LIT FEST WINNERS
Based in 2011, the Bocas Lit Fest is Trinidad and Tobago’s premier annual literary pageant. It’s a celebration of books, writers, writing, and concepts — with a Caribbean focus and worldwide scope. The pageant brings collectively readers and writers from Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean, and past for readings, performances, workshops, discussions, movie screenings, and extra.
- OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
This main literary award for Caribbean writers was gained by Myriam J.A. Chancy for her novel Village Weavers, revealed by Tin Home. - Bocas Henry Swanzy Award (2025)
Awarded to the Journal of West Indian Literature (JWIL), first revealed in 1986, in recognition of its enduring position as probably the most vital scholarly journal devoted to Caribbean literature. JWIL has served as an important discussion board for vital and artistic debate and as an archive of analysis and thought, that includes practically each main scholar engaged on Anglophone Caribbean literature throughout three generations.
CALABASH LITERARY FESTIVAL
The Calabash Worldwide Literary Pageant was based in 2001 by three Jamaicans: novelist Colin Channer, poet Kwame Dawes, and producer Justine Henzell. Their goal was to create a world-class literary pageant rooted in Jamaica, with branches reaching out into the broader world
Audio system at Calabash 2025 included:
- Kei Miller
A Jamaican creator, poet, novelist, essayist, brief story author, and broadcaster. His poetry assortment The Cartographer Tries to Map a Approach to Zion gained the Ahead Prize for Greatest Assortment, and his novel Augustown gained the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2017. He has acquired the Silver Musgrave Medal for his contributions to literature. His poetry has been shortlisted for the Jonathan Llewelyn Rhys Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Scottish E-book of the Yr. His fiction has gained the Una Marson Prize and been shortlisted for each the Phyllis Wheatley Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His most up-to-date work, Issues I Have Withheld, is a linked assortment of essays mixing memoir and literary commentary. - Carolyn Cooper
Professor Emerita of Literary and Cultural Research on the College of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She is the creator of two influential tutorial books: Sound Conflict: Jamaican Dancehall Tradition At Giant (2004) and Noises within the Blood: Orality, Gender, and the ‘Vulgar’ Physique of Jamaican Fashionable Tradition (1993). She additionally edited the award-winning essay assortment World Reggae (2012). Within the Nineties, Cooper wrote a bilingual weekly column for The Jamaica Observer, addressing problems with race, class, and gender politics. From 2009 to 2024, she was a columnist for The Sunday Gleaner. For her excellent work in schooling, she was awarded the nationwide honour, the Order of Distinction (Commander class), in 2013.
