The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature

The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature is a major award for literary books by Caribbean writers. Prizes are awarded three categories: poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction; with one book being named the “Overall Winner.” The prize includes an award of $10,000 for the overall winner ($3,000 for the other winners), and is sponsored by One Caribbean Media. The awards are announced during the Bocas Literary Festival which is held in Trinidad & Tobago each spring.

To be eligible for the prize, a book must have been published in the past calendar year, and written by an author born in the Caribbean or holding Caribbean citizenship. Books must also have been originally written in English. Learn more.

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3 Books Honored in 2013

Overall Winner (Fiction)

Book Description: 

A mesmerizing tale of a father and daughter’s sailing adventure from Trinidad to the Galapagos Islands, winner of the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and finalist for the 2014 Orion Book Award
Monique Roffey, vibrant new voice in Caribbean fiction and author of the Orange Prize finalist The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, returns with Archipelago, a new novel that is a journey of redemption, healing, and hope in the wake of devastating loss. When a flood destroys Gavin Weald’s home in Trinidad and rips his family apart, life as he knows it will never be the same. A year later he returns to his house and tries to start over, but when the rainy season arrives, his daughter’s nightmares about the torrents make life there unbearable. So father and daughterand their dogembark upon a voyage to make peace with the waters. Their journey takes them far from their Caribbean island home, as they sail through archipelagos, encounter the grandeur of the sea, and meet with the challenges and surprises of the natural world.Synopsis:

A mesmerizing tale of a father and daughter’s sailing adventure from Trinidad to the Galapagos Islands, winner of the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and finalist for the 2014 Orion Book Award
Monique Roffey, vibrant new voice in Caribbean fiction and author of the Orange Prize finalist The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, returns with Archipelago, a new novel that is a journey of redemption, healing, and hope in the wake of devastating loss. When a flood destroys Gavin Weald’s home in Trinidad and rips his family apart, life as he knows it will never be the same. A year later he returns to his house and tries to start over, but when the rainy season arrives, his daughter’s nightmares about the torrents make life there unbearable. So father and daughterand their dogembark upon a voyage to make peace with the waters. Their journey takes them far from their Caribbean island home, as they sail through archipelagos, encounter the grandeur of the sea, and meet with the challenges and surprises of the natural world.

Winner Nonfiction

Book Description: 

In these essays, Rupert Roopnarainewho has been called a Caribbean Hazlittdisplays his sharp antennae for the spirit of the age and a prose style that is both elegant and intensely alive. A wide range of his interests are represented here, including literary and art criticism, political analysis, social commentary, memoirs, and tributes. Taken together, the material provides an overview of Roopnaraine’s30-year political battle for democracy, social justice, racial harmony, and the creation of a cultivated civil society in Guyana and the wider Caribbean.Synopsis:

In these essays, Rupert Roopnarainewho has been called a Caribbean Hazlittdisplays his sharp antennae for the spirit of the age and a prose style that is both elegant and intensely alive. A wide range of his interests are represented here, including literary and art criticism, political analysis, social commentary, memoirs, and tributes. Taken together, the material provides an overview of Roopnaraine’s30-year political battle for democracy, social justice, racial harmony, and the creation of a cultivated civil society in Guyana and the wider Caribbean.

Winner Poetry

Book Description: 

With verbal urgency and visionary imagination, this collection features the work of one of the Caribbean’s most important poets. Presenting what life is like on a small island, vulnerable to the wounded thrashings of world capitalism in crisisan island where livelihoods are destroyed at the flourish of a Brussel bureaucrat’s pen; where Paradise is a tourist cruise ship that reminds the people of their neocolonial status; andwhere global consumerism has poisoned the ambitions of the young into drugs, crime, and violencethese candid poems are a warning of the perils fragmenting societies and ecologies.Synopsis:

With verbal urgency and visionary imagination, this collection features the work of one of the Caribbean’s most important poets. Presenting what life is like on a small island, vulnerable to the wounded thrashings of world capitalism in crisisan island where livelihoods are destroyed at the flourish of a Brussel bureaucrat’s pen; where Paradise is a tourist cruise ship that reminds the people of their neocolonial status; andwhere global consumerism has poisoned the ambitions of the young into drugs, crime, and violencethese candid poems are a warning of the perils fragmenting societies and ecologies.