Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival New York's 1st literary festival solely dedicated to Caribbean literature.

The BCLF is committed to celebrating Caribbean culture through the pen of the storyteller and the voice of the poet in a manner that is wholly and uniquely Caribbean.

Chef Andre Fowles knows the kitchen as the matrix which shapes memory. Jamaican-born and New York-based, his cooking is ...
05/13/2026

Chef Andre Fowles knows the kitchen as the matrix which shapes memory. Jamaican-born and New York-based, his cooking is rooted in the rhythms of Saturday markets, Sunday kitchens, and the unmistakable scent of pimento and thyme, the foundation that taught him cooking is as much about intention as it is technique.

That devotion found its fullest expression in ‘My Jamaican Table,’ his debut cookbook that goes beyond the familiar touchstones of Jamaican cuisine to foreground the deeper textures of this cultural powerhouse. Drawing on the island’s rich blend of African, Indian, Chinese, and Spanish influences, the book preserves the recipes as an armory of stories and
memories of a sundrenched and teeming island.

‘My Jamaican Table’ came from years spent navigating both the culinary world and the digital space, balancing the patience of the kitchen with the immediacy of the internet, and learning that both demand the same thing: clarity of purpose and authenticity of voice. We got to sit with Andre and hear how those experiences have shaped his journey in the culinary space.

Today, through his cooking, writing, (and as a three-time Chopped champion!) he continues to spotlight Caribbean food in its entirety, as a vivid and rich form of cultural expression.

Gwan and get yuh copy! And find Chef on instagram

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival joins the wider Caribbean and literary community in mourning the passing of Puerto-...
05/11/2026

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival joins the wider Caribbean and literary community in mourning the passing of Puerto-Rican writer Xavier Navarro Aquino, whose Velorio added an very critical layer to the exploration of climate-themed fiction and the intertwined lives of the people most impacted by environmental disaster. Set in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, this story which felt experimental, urgent and unforgettable, stunned readers with its strength, and how it beautifully summoned courage, hope and resilience in the face of unspeakable odds.

While conversations to include Xavier in our 2025 festival unfortunately never materialized, his kindness in communication, appreciation for the work of creative collectives in the Diaspora and willingness to support in other tangible ways will be remembered fondly. We at Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival deeply revered the intentional way he represented Puerto Rico in literature; as a full-bodied place and people, deserving of, its sovereignty, worthy of respect for its rich history and culture.

We extend our sincerest condolences to his wife, family, loved ones and colleagues; and are grateful for the impact his craft and presence made on the world.

PREE Writing Studio is a 4-day residential Writing Studio bringing together acclaimed writers, literary professionals, a...
05/04/2026

PREE Writing Studio is a 4-day residential Writing Studio bringing together acclaimed writers, literary professionals, and emerging writers for an immersive learning experience in Kingston, Jamaica. Applications are now open until May 15! Learn more and apply: preewritingstudio.com.

For more information, checkout their page !

We are pleased to announce the opening of the 2026 BCLF Short Fiction Story in two categories (Diaspora & Regional) unde...
05/01/2026

We are pleased to announce the opening of the 2026 BCLF Short Fiction Story in two categories (Diaspora & Regional) under the theme ‘What Cannot Be Done Alone’.

This year’s theme is an invitation for writers to explore the relationships, tensions, and collaborations that shape Caribbean lives across economies, generations, geographies, and imagined worlds.

‘What Cannot Be Done Alone’ as practice and theme is the radical insistence that has underpinned the embodied Caribbean experience. It speaks to the narrative arc of communal partnership and the defiant will within developing communities to rely on the power of collective action. It is the instinct to coalesce as opposed to the easier, more insidious call to fragmentation.

This year, our contest is as much a call for the stories that examine shared survival, contested belonging, inheritance and repair as it is for the stories that interrogate what happens to us under the influence of unforeseen consequences of connection. Writers are encouraged to consider how lives intersect and how futures are shaped through relation rather than isolation.

Prize winners in each category will receive a $1,750 USD cash award, a BCLF trophy, and publication in several literary magazines. Submissions open today, May 1st and close July 1st at 11:59 pm ET.

What story will you tell that could not be told alone?

For Marie Mitchell, the kitchen has always been where love is made legible. The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Marie’s...
04/22/2026

For Marie Mitchell, the kitchen has always been where love is made legible. The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Marie’s cooking is animated by a desire to honour and understand the recipes passed down through generations.

That devotion found its most expansive form in “Kin,” her debut cookbook published by Particular Books in the UK, and WW Norton in the U.S., which maps the Caribbean and its diaspora through food, tracing the connections it builds between temporal moments and distant geographies, between home and wherever home has become.

But Kin didn’t arrive in a vacuum. It grew out of years of community-building: first through Pop’s Kitchen, the bi-monthly supper club Marie launched with her parents in 2015, and later through Island Social Club, the beloved rum and roti residency that became a home for Caribbean food culture in London. We got to sit with Marie and hear how these experiences shaped her journey in the culinary space.

Today, through her writing, recipes, and ongoing work as a food advocate, she continues making the case that Caribbean foodways are among the most rich, complex, and vital culinary traditions in the world.

Run guh fi yuh copy of “Kin” and find Chef Marie at

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For Marie Mitchell, the kitchen has always been where love is made legible. The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Marie’s...
04/22/2026

For Marie Mitchell, the kitchen has always been where love is made legible. The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Marie’s cooking is animated by a desire to honour and understand the recipes passed down through generations.

That devotion found its most expansive form in “Kin,” her debut cookbook published by Particular Books in the UK, and WW Norton in the U.S., which maps the Caribbean and its diaspora through food, tracing the connections it builds between temporal moments and distant geographies, between home and wherever home has become.

But Kin didn’t arrive in a vacuum. It grew out of years of community-building: first through Pop’s Kitchen, the bi-monthly supper club Marie launched with her parents in 2015, and later through Island Social Club, the beloved rum and roti residency that became a home for Caribbean food culture in London. We got to sit with Marie and hear how these experiences shaped her journey in the culinary space.

Today, through her writing, recipes, and ongoing work as a food advocate, she continues making the case that Caribbean foodways are among the most rich, complex, and vital culinary traditions in the world.

Run guh fi yuh copy of “Kin” and find Chef Marie at

04/20/2026

Prospero’s Daughter has turned 20, and we are honouring Elizabeth Nunez’ landmark novel the only way we know how: by returning to the words themselves. Our reading of Chapter Two marks the beginning of a journey into Elizabeth’s world, one that opens onto the Trinidad she renders so vividly, its landscape, its contradictions, its beauty, and the colonial wound that runs beneath the surface of it all.

Elizabeth Nunez has long been one of the defining voices of Caribbean literature in the diaspora, and this novel remains one of her most enduring gifts to us. We’re grateful to hold it, to read it aloud, and to share it with this community.

Happy birthday Kitch! 🇹🇹18 April 1922 - 11 February 2000The incomparable Grandmaster of calypso, Aldwyn Kitchener Robert...
04/18/2026

Happy birthday Kitch! 🇹🇹

18 April 1922 - 11 February 2000

The incomparable Grandmaster of calypso, Aldwyn Kitchener Roberts was born in Arima, Trinidad in modest circumstances to a loving mother and a blacksmith father, the sound of whose smithing and forging crafted the early notes and syncopation that would haunt his entire musical consciousness—from his humble wins as the Calypso champion of Arima to later accolades as the Road March King of the World. It is no wonder then, that the first set of “pan” tunes were crafted by him, unable as he was to escape the “pee ding pong ping” notes circulating in the chambers of his head and heart.

Kitch was a prolific writer and performer, quick-witted, responsive in verse to the local and global happenings and a ‘saltfish’. By all accounts he was well-loved and always sharply dressed from the moment he left Arima, grip in hand, trilby on head and descended into the packed community of La Cour Harpe where he lived and climbed his way to the top of the calypso tent playbills until his departure for the Motherland as part of the Windrush movement. His infamous ‘London is the Place for Me’ was penned there as were the hundreds of calypsoes he returned for the steel bands at Trinidad Carnival.

With most of our rich histories carried orally and memorialised in song, it’s not often we find texts dedicated to our cultural heroes. Kitchener was a living, breathing archive of Trinidadians’ way of being as they moved through the island and the world. Each Kitchener composition in verse and melody was an observation, a record, an extrapolation of hope, possibility, joy, our deepest aspiration, hard times and ketch ass, plotted like coordinates on a map pointing our way to survival.

Poet, Anthony Joseph’s fictional biography of Kitch’s life therefore is a gift. A courageous undertaking and a fitting tribute to a legend whose melodies lend themselves to rediscovery with each hearing.

Congratulations to Kei Miller on being awarded the 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction! The Windham-Campbell Priz...
04/13/2026

Congratulations to Kei Miller on being awarded the 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction!

The Windham-Campbell Prize is an American based literary award that recognizes and supports writers of extraordinary achievement. We are happy to see poet and writer Kei Miller amongst the ranks of those awarded.

His essays hold what the prize committee calls “a range of writerly selves,” confronting with unflinching honesty the silences around race, s*x, and gender that too often go unspoken. This one is well deserved!

Before her passing two years ago, the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival was able to sit down with one of the most for...
04/07/2026

Before her passing two years ago, the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival was able to sit down with one of the most formidable literary minds the Caribbean has ever produced. Today, we publish that conversation for the first time.

In the interview, Maryse Condé, novelist, historian, and uncompromising voice of the African diaspora, speaks on Creole identity and French assimilation, her journeys through Africa, the enduring weight of Fanon, and what it means to write truthfully about the people history has tried to silence.

We are honored to share a foreword from the ground breaking author who lent her name to our festival prize, Elizabeth Nunez, who knew Maryse not only as a reader and admirer, but as a guest at her table, in New York and in Guadeloupe.

Maryse Condé passed away in April 2024. This interview is in her memory, and in gratitude for everything she gave to Caribbean literature and to all of us who came after.

This interview was edited by amilcar sanatan,

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