SAFIYA SINCLAIR WINS OCM BOCAS PRIZE

The 2024 NGC Bocas Lit Fest wrapped up over the weekend.  And, on Saturday, the winner of the One Caribbean Media Bocas Prize was announced.

Transcript

00:00 The OCM Bocas Prize overall winner is How to Say Babylon by Sophia Sinclair.

00:10 The big winner at the Centerpiece Award ceremony for this year's NGC Bocas Lit

00:17 Fest. Every time I come to Trinidad I fall more in love with it, which as a

00:21 Jamaican you know it's not an easy feat but thank you so much. According to

00:27 Sinclair her memoir How to Say Babylon was inspired by Caribbean women in

00:33 particular those whose works go unsung and those women who are overlooked. And

00:39 in many ways too I wrote this book for my father and the Rasta bridging like

00:44 him who gave me the fire of my linguistic rebellion to say what I mean

00:48 and mean what I say. I wrote this in hopes that my father may understand me a

00:54 little bit better that he might finally hear me. As the winner of the one

00:59 Caribbean media Bocas Prize for Caribbean literature she'll receive

01:03 $10,000 US dollars. The Bocas Lit Fest

01:10 management and its organizers have done well in seeking to revive a spirit which

01:16 has remained in and around the media environment. If not also in other places

01:23 where good conversations take place about aspects of our proud social

01:30 history. The other two authors making the shortlist were Kevin Jarrett Hossain who

01:36 won the OCM Prize for fiction with his book Hungry Ghosts and Nicole Sealy the

01:43 winner of the OCM Prize for poetry with her book The Ferguson Report and Erasure.

01:49 Asia. Anselm Gibbs, TV6 News.

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