Sadly, Barbara Jenkins' novel De Rightest Place didn't win the RSL Christopher Bland Prize, but we're thrilled for author Raynod Winn, who won with her memoir, The Salt Path.
Judge Gillian Slovo (who chaired the prize with fellow judges Sanjeev Bhaskar, Archie Bland and Anne Chisholm) wrote of Barbara's book, 'A warm, funny and unexpected book that makes the reader laugh.'
“For some time – maybe since the late 1990s-2000s – I have been noting that a cycle of time has been closing,” said Rohlehr. “Cycles of time are always closing, and new ones are always beginning, but I’m talking about my own time – the writers, friends and calypsonians of my time.”
Each year the African Poetry Book Fund awards the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry in order to recognize a significant book published by an African poet published during the previous calendar year. The winner of the prize receives $1000 USD. This year’s contest was judged by Bernardine Evaristo, an Anglo-Nigerian author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction, as well as a founding member of the APBF Editorial Board.
Slate: Black. Arts. World has announced its latest round of commissions. Malika Booker has been awarded a £4,000 research and development commission to work on a new project.
Malika’s work, titled Walking With Our Dead, is a choreopoem (a work involving poetic text and movement), where Black men share stories about the institutional war waged on their bodies.
We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2019 Encore Award:
Sam Byers Perfidious Albion (Faber & Faber)
Kerry Hadley-Pryce Gamble (Salt Publishing)
Anthony Joseph Kitch (Peepal Tree Press)
Sally Rooney Normal People (Faber & Faber)
Daniel Shand Crocodile (Sandstone Press)
Sam Thompson Jott (JM Originals)
The winner will be announced on Thursday 13 June.
Breanne Mc Ivor has always loved words and writing since she could remember. “My mother kept all these copybooks full of stories that I would write as a child. I would follow her around the house while reading stories to her, so I’ve always had a story that I was ready and willing to share,” she recalled.
Now, the Cambridge-educated writer, who’s been shortlisted for several writing prizes, has returned home to tell new stories – our stories, to the world.
Leeds Beckett University Course Director for English Literature and Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature at the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities, Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, reflects on the of role of the university's latest Writer in Residence, award-winning British-Caribbean author Jacob Ross.
‘Put your character up a tree – and then BURN that tree down!’
Jacqueline Bishop interviewed Edward Baugh in last weekend's Bookends column in the Jamaica Sunday Observer (Sunday 21 April, 2019). It's full of interesting literary morsels about the great Caribbean writer.
On realising he was a poet:
The NCLA Newcastle Poetry Festival is back from the 1-4 May 2019, celebrating cross-genre art and the transformative power of poetry. This year's stunning line-up includes Peepal Tree authors Ishion Hutchinson and Malika Booker, and Inscribe-supported writer Degna Stone. They join a programme headlined by US literary lights Terrance Hayes and Mary Ruefle, as well as prize-winning poets Phoebe Power, Hannah Sullivan, Liz Berry and more.
Don’t miss the Poetry Book Soceity / NCLA Northern Poetry Symposium on 2 May from 10am at the Sage Gateshead.
The UWI Open Campus Saint Lucia, in collaboration with the JQ Charles Group of Companies, will host the 9th Annual Patricia Charles Memorial Lecture on Thursday, April 25, 2019, at 7 p.m., in the conference room of the Finance Administrative Centre, Pointe Seraphine, Castries.
