2. NGC Bocas Literary Festival
Port of Spain, Trinidad
Founded in 2011 by Marina Salandy-Brown, Trinidad’s Bocas Lit Festival is held during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. The fest takes its name from the Spanish word for mouth, and, more poetically, also references the narrow straits off Trinidad’s north-west peninsula connecting the Gulf of Paria to the Caribbean Sea known as the Bocas Del Dragon. Top names that have attended or presented at Bocas include Earl Lovelace, Derek Walcott, Fred D’Augier, Chika Unigwe and George Lamming. This year’s edition featured cultural performances from major figures in Trinidad’s oral tradition, Pierrot Grenades and Midnight Robbers, a live performance by Freetown Collective, and a focus on dub poetry that included a dedication to the late dub poet Mikey Smith, and a discussion led by Jamaica’s Linton Kwesi Johnson, Lorna Goodison and Kei Miller.