The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF) will host Caribbean scholar and chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, Prof. Hilary Beckles and writers including Edwidge Danticat, Roxane Gay, Dr. Dominic Kalipersad, P. Djèlí Clark and Richard Georges from September 5 to 8, 2024.
For five consecutive years, BCLF has brought together writers, artists, cultural workers, intellectuals and activists from the Caribbean and its diaspora to the festival, according to a press release.
Haitian-American writers Edwidge Danticat and Roxane Gay will launch Edwidge Danticat’s new collection of essays, We're Alone (Graywolf Press, 2024), while Trinidadian journalist Dr. Dominic Kalipersad will share the stage with Dr. Kevin Browne, OCM Bocas Lit Prize winner.
While US Virgin Islands-born writer Tiphanie Yanique joins the cast for the first time ever, P. Djèlí Clark, Locus Awards winner, makes a return. Richard Georges, first poet laureate of the British Virgin Islands, will also conduct a poetry workshop.
Other noteworthy guests include decorated Dominican-American author, Angie Cruz, Diana McCaulay and Lisa Allen-Agostini.
For the first time, the festival will extend its programming beyond its official dates, by organizing pre- and post-events in collaboration with other cultural organizations in Brooklyn and the Caribbean, the press release said.
On August 8, BCLF will partner with Akashic Books to host a conversation at Greenlight Bookstore between Bill “Blade” Howell and Roland Watson-Grant to present Howell’s new book Pinnacle: The Lost Paradise of Rasta, a fascinating first-person origin story of Rastafari ideology, culture, and philosophy, capturing a crucial and little-known chapter in Jamaican history.
The festival will also follow up with a major event during the Brooklyn Book Festival, in partnership with the Center for Fiction.
On September 29, writers Esmeralda Santiago, Barbara Jenkins and Lorna Goodison will be together in a conversation moderated by Lauren Francis-Sharma to reflect on their lives.
The BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest will also name the 2024 winners and finalists for its two categories - BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize and BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean in the first week of September, generating tremendous excitement for the upcoming festivities. The contest is geared toward unearthing and showcasing the stories of Caribbean-descended writers within the region and the diaspora. In the past five years, the contest has grown in popularity and is now considered one of the top contests for Caribbean writers in the world.
The theme for this year, ‘Faces of the Caribbean’ is a nod to the emblematic and iconic people, attributes, rituals and habits that create the composite identity generally considered to be Caribbean. With the underlying conception that the Caribbean experience may be defined through an identifiable and distinguishable universal set of attributes, the festival also aims to showcase the diversity of voices from across the region and the diaspora, emphasizing the rich variety within the Caribbean community.
The festival's full lineup can be found here.
