The Bo­cas Lit Fest is set to re­turn this May for its high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 15th edi­tion, un­der the cap­ti­vat­ing theme “Al­ways Com­ing Home”. As the largest lit­er­ary event in the An­glo­phone Caribbean, T&T’s pre­mier cel­e­bra­tion of books, writ­ers, and ideas promis­es a dy­nam­ic and di­verse pro­gramme.

Tak­ing place from May 1 to 4, the 2025 fes­ti­val will fea­ture a rich line-up of 50 events tai­lored for adults, teens, and chil­dren, with over 100 renowned writ­ers, speak­ers, and per­form­ers. Host­ed at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain, the fes­ti­val will al­so of­fer satel­lite events at var­i­ous venues across the city, en­sur­ing a tru­ly im­mer­sive lit­er­ary ex­pe­ri­ence for all.

“We of­ten de­scribe our an­nu­al fes­ti­val as a kind of home­com­ing for Caribbean writ­ers and read­ers,” said Bo­ca’s Fes­ti­val and Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor Nicholas Laugh­lin.

“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.”

Jean-Claude Cour­nand, CEO of the Bo­cas Lit Fest said, “Bo­cas Lit Fest has been in­vest­ed in cre­at­ing a sense of space for Caribbean lit­er­a­ture in the world and to do that ef­fec­tive­ly we are al­so cre­at­ing a sense of space for our­selves. Like Mr Mo­han Biswas from Naipaul’s fa­mous work A House for Biswas, we have been on a jour­ney to find a space to call home–and with it a sense of in­de­pen­dence and per­ma­nence.”

On the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the Bo­cas Lit­Fest, Cour­nand added, “the mod­el you see, a lit­er­a­ture fes­ti­val, pub­lish­ing house, book­shop, cafe, an event space, work­shop space and spaces for sub­lease all form part of our vi­sion for a sus­tain­able home for Caribbean lit­er­a­ture.”

The fes­ti­val’s open­ing night on 1 May 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 an­nu­al 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 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 cel­e­brat­ed au­thors Er­na Brod­ber, Mar­lon James, and An­tho­ny Vah­ni Capildeo—the Trinida­di­an-Scot­tish po­et who was re­cent­ly named win­ner of a pres­ti­gious Wind­ham Camp­bell Prize.

Oth­er fes­ti­val guests in­clude Alex­is Pauline Gumbs, au­thor of a new bi­og­ra­phy of Au­dre Lorde; de­but nov­el­ists Justin Haynes, Berkley Sem­ple, and Christi­na Cooke; Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an au­thor Kai Thomas, win­ner of the At­wood Gib­son Writ­ers Trust Award; and the UK-based Trinida­di­an Lawrence Scott, an al­ready ac­claimed fic­tion writer who has now pub­lished his first book of po­ems.

Au­di­ences can look for­ward to the dou­ble­head­er launch of new nov­els by Ja­maican Olive Se­nior and Trinida­di­an Ce­leste Mo­hammed—both for­mer win­ners of the OCM Bo­cas Prize—whose books will make their world de­but at the fes­ti­val.

Along­side fes­ti­val ses­sions fo­cused on re­cent books of fic­tion and po­ems, the pro­gramme al­so in­cludes a high-lev­el “Big Ideas” dis­cus­sion pan­el, ask­ing how con­tem­po­rary geopol­i­tics and the agen­das of glob­al lead­ers shape ur­gent ques­tions about cit­i­zen­ship, na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty, and re­de­f­i­n­i­tions of hu­man rights.

Speak­ers will in­clude Eliz­a­beth Solomon, Cari­com As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions; EU Am­bas­sador Pe­ter Cavendish; in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Richard Lynch; and Kel­lie Mag­nus, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Cul­ture Fund.

Fes­ti­val-go­ers will find a se­ries of writ­ing work­shops and free Writ­ers First sem­i­nars, aimed at ear­ly-ca­reer au­thors; a se­ries of films in­spired by Earl Lovelace; the pop­u­lar Ex­tem­po De­bate and Ole Mas Com­pe­ti­tion; BackChat, a rous­ing show­case of LGBTQI+ writ­ers host­ed by CAISO: Sex and Gen­der Jus­tice; and the launch of Writ­ing for Our Lives, a new an­thol­o­gy on cli­mate jus­tice, pub­lished by The Crop­per Foun­da­tion in part­ner­ship with Peekash Press.

The fes­ti­val’s clos­ing event will be the 2025 First Cit­i­zens Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam Fi­nals, with the theme “Bring It Home”—where some of T&T’s best per­for­mance po­ets will com­pete for the grand slam ti­tle.

OCM, First Cit­i­zens, the JB Fer­nan­des Memo­r­i­al Trust, and the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts are main spon­sors of the 2025 Bo­cas Lit Fest; the British Coun­cil, the Wind­ham Camp­bell Prizes, Mur­phy Clarke, the Massy Foun­da­tion, and The UWI are spon­sors.

The full fes­ti­val pro­gramme is on­line at bo­caslit­fest.com