Caribbean writ­ing gets an­oth­er boost with the sec­ond OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture, which will re­ward the best Caribbean book pub­lished this year with a US$10,000 prize. En­tries were opened on Sep­tem­ber 16, and the 2012 prize will be an­nounced in April next year at the Bo­cas Lit Fest, T&T's an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val. The best book is cho­sen from the win­ner in each of three cat­e­gories-non-fic­tion, fic­tion and po­et­ry. Pub­lished writ­ers who are Caribbean by birth or cit­i­zen­ship, liv­ing and work­ing any­where in the world, are el­i­gi­ble for the prize, which in 2011, its in­au­gur­al year, at­tract­ed 60 en­tries from more than a dozen coun­tries.

White Egrets, No­bel Lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott's elo­quent mus­ing over age and mor­tal­i­ty, was the win­ner of the first OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture. In con­tention for the US$10,000 re­ward for the best book of 2010 was How To Es­cape From a Lep­er Colony by first time pub­lished au­thor and win­ner of the fic­tion cat­e­go­ry, Tiphanie Yanique, and Cre­ate Dan­ger­ous­ly by young and cel­e­brat­ed Hait­ian au­thor, Ed­widge Dan­ti­cat, win­ner of the non-fic­tion cat­e­go­ry. Eleven judges, led by ac­claimed Bar­ba­di­an au­thor, George Lam­ming, will de­cide on the best book pub­lished by a Caribbean writer in 2011. Founder of the an­nu­al prize, Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, said choos­ing the judges was a lit­tle com­plex, "If they have a book that is el­i­gi­ble for en­try to the prize, we have to rule them out for that year. Then we must get a spread across the re­gion and the Di­as­po­ra, a good gen­der bal­ance and mix of genre spe­cial­ists and, of course, they must have the time.

"Al­so, we can­not in­vite every­one at once. We have to save some of our big guns for fu­ture years. We think we have an­oth­er col­lec­tion of fine judges for 2012 prize, which is just as well since some very good ti­tles have been ap­pear­ing in 2011 by both emerg­ing and es­tab­lished au­thors and we ex­pect them to be en­tered for the 2012 Prize." The judges will pro­duce a short­list in March and the win­ner will be an­nounced on April 28, 2012 at an award cer­e­mo­ny that is a high­light of the four-day Bo­cas Lit Fest, held an­nu­al­ly on the last week­end of April at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain. The KFC Chil­dren's Bo­cas Lit Fest takes place around the coun­try dur­ing April. In­for­ma­tion on the OCM Bo­cas Prize is avail­able at www.bo­caslit­fest.com and on Face­book.