The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Celebrates Caribbean Storytelling And Culture For A Fifth Year

News Americas, Brooklyn, NY, Tues. Sept. 5, 2023: The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, (BCLF), returns this year to celebrate its milestone fifth season in New York City.

Through the BCLF, Caribbean thought and intellectualism, which are often underrepresented in popular culture, have a unique platform to be celebrated, appreciated, and thrive. From September 7th-10th, lovers of literature will once again have the opportunity to experience this dynamic literary festival as it brings Caribbean stories and storytellers to the forefront of New York’s culture scene with interactive events.

“The BCLF festival has been bringing together talented writers, captivating storytellers, and passionate literature enthusiasts from all walks of life for the last four years,” said Director of Operations Mellany Paynter. “It’s a true celebration of culture, diversity, and the power of words. Festival 5 will be full of vibrant energy and more events than any year prior. It is a must-attend 4-day experience.”

Since its inception in 2019, the BCLF festival has gathered under its wing over 250 Caribbean writers, publishers, and creatives, including renowned contemporary and classic authors like Jamaica Kincaid, Elizabeth Nunez, Tiphanie Yanique, Velma Pollard, and P. Djeli Clark. This year, the organization selected Bahamian writer Ethan Knowles as the winner of the coveted BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award For Writers In The Caribbean for his short fiction story “Sponger Monkey.” The Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize was awarded to Jade Leatham from Dominica for her short fiction story “Jungle Siren.”

The festival will also feature celebrated writers from Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and other islands. The four-day event, which takes place at several locations across downtown Brooklyn, will include panel discussions, a film screening, a Kalinda workshop, and poetry readings and events such as “Writing For The Future,” exclusively featuring writers who write Caribbean stories for children.

Also on its roster is “5 Minutes With Elizabeth Nunez”, an original BCLF short film series celebrating a selection of novels by Elizabeth Nunez and “Bad Man Doh Cry”: a literary conversation about the norms, dynamics, relationships, and rites of passage of Caribbean masculinity through the selected works of three award-winning male writers.

“Festival 5 is a triumphant declaration of the persistence of Caribbean spirit and the insistence of its people to thrive. This year, we marry various disciplines (film, music, and indigenous art forms) that each holds a story at its center in celebration of Caribbean culture,” said Festival Founder Marsha Massiah-Aaron.

As the premiere literary festival taking place at the epicenter of the Caribbean diaspora, BCLF’s multifaceted programming continues to amplify, expand, and showcase the notable contributions of Caribbean and Caribbean-American writers.

“Without our stories, we are nothing. Our work at the BCLF has been to insist that the ones who own these stories and share them with the world are rightly acknowledged, credited and celebrated,” said Massiah-Aaron.

For more information on The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival and the daily schedule, visit bklyncbeanlitfest.org/

About BCLF

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is a celebration of culture as expressed through the pen of the storyteller and the voice of the poet. Our platform is designed to facilitate vibrant conversations about Caribbean identity via a series of readings of classic and contemporary stories, podcasts, and conversations. The highlight of our work is the annual capstone festival, which is supported by ever-evolving year-long programming.