News

Hazel Simmons-McDonald, March 2019.
Hazel Simmons-McDonald 2018 Frank Collymore Literary Award Winner

THE TOP SPOT at the Frank Collymore Literary Awards went to Hazel Simmons McDonald on January 5, 2019.

Simmons-McDonald, a retired University of the West Indies professor and poet, took second place in the 2018 competition.  She won for her manuscript A Collection of Short Stories.

For the third time in its twenty-one-year history, the committee decided not to award a first prize from the shortlist.

Performer and poet Sonia Williams, for the second year running, took third place with her poetry manuscript On Livity.

read more...
A Review of Frontiers of the Caribbean

Compelling and emphatic language toned down by academic speak.  A stitched-together structure that is both focused and diffuse.  The folk voices of Philip Nanton’s Frontiers of the Caribbean nevertheless come across, especially the accounts of his fellow Vincentians from interviews—or from personal profiling: “I cannot say that I knew my father well.  Perhaps he did not want to be known.  What I remember of his characteristics could fit on a postage stamp, but there were identifiable tendencies that were almost archetypal.”  The book could have done with more of such illustrative a

read more...
A Review of The Thunder Beneath Us

In Nicole Blades' second novel, The Thunder Beneath Us, a talented but self-sabotaging writer is forced to grapple with her painful past as years of secrecy and shame come back to haunt her. Best Lightburn is an ingenue making a name for herself in the New York magazine world; she is surrounded by fabulous, fun friends and is dating a handsome movie star. But things take a bad turn when her boyfriend, Grant, has a breakdown and her beloved boss leaves the style magazine where she works.

read more...
A Review of New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean

The Caribbean has a powerful, modern tradition of fantastic literature that’s on full display in this anthology of original fiction by writers from Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bermuda.  Some stories in New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean, edited by Karen Lord, are science fiction and some fantasy, but all are firmly rooted in the rich folk tradition of the islands.

read more...
A Review of Prickett's Well

Edison T. Williams' Prickett's Well is a long fuse with a slow burn, where the sparks are visible but the time to detonation is unknown.  Anticipation, therefore, is built throughout this carefully constructed novel set in Barbados.  

read more...
The 2018 ArtsEtc Independence Reading List, The 2018 IndyList
The 2018 IndyList

 

THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List is now eight years old!

The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.

The list, which first appeared in 2011, is part of the Editors' ongoing "Mapping Our Literature" mission, which promotes awareness of and celebrates Barbadian books and their authors. Each year, we recommend new, classic, and noteworthy titles in fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children’s literature.

And we encourage you to discover and add your own!

read more...
Mia Mottley, Barbados' General Election May 24, 2018.
Editorial: After Elections, Barbadians Must Learn to Move Forward

BARBADIANS MAY HAVE FACED one of their toughest general elections May 24 since becoming independent.   It may even have been as tough as the one faced by their American neighbours far to the north in 2016.

The choice felt familiarly limited: between a man more concerned with how he would be viewed by history on the one hand and, on the next, a woman long in the political trenches possibly attempting to fulfill her own destiny.

The real decision for Barbadians on Election Day was the stewardship of their country for the next five years.  It was an uneasy one.  

read more...
Anthony Kellman's Tracing JaJa Wins 2018 Casa de las Americas Prize

 

You can also read more about Kellman's Tracing JaJa and 2018's Casa de las Américas Prize honourable mentions for Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba by Sharon Milagro Marshall and Canouan Suite & Other Pieces by Philip Nanton here.

Last updated May 5, 2018.

read more...
Heather Barker, Sonia S. Williams among 2017 Colly Winners

 

THE 2017 JUDGES for the 20th Annual Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award were DeCarla Applewhaite, Professor Jane Bryce, Ayesha Gibson-Gill, Dana Gilkes, Christine Matthews, Professor Mark McWatt, Esther Phillips, Chairman Antonio “Boo” Rudder, and Andy Taitt.  The following is what they had to say about this year’s awardees: 

Honourable Mention

read more...
A Review of John Robert Lee's Collected Poems 1975-2015

COLLECTED POEMS 1975-2015 by John Robert Lee represents one man’s spiritual journey meandering through thorny labyrinths of faith, “from inner city provinces to southern islands of Amerika” (“Challenger”). This journey began long before 1975: when a young Lee witnessed his father, Alleyne, relishing a dessert of fresh ripe mangoes on a Sunday afternoon and began to contemplate seriously his romance with the written word.

read more...

Pages