The Journal of West Indian Literature joins many in celebrating the life and writing of Maryse Condé, the dynamic Guadeloupean author who passed away on April 2, 2024 at the age of 90. Her prolific and globally-recognized body of work offered postcolonial feminist perspectives informed by her peripatetic life led across the Caribbean, Africa, Western Europe and the US. Among the many awards she… Source ..read more

We at JWIL honor the memory and legacy of the Guyanese writer, Rooplall Monar (1945-2024). A poet, novelist and short story writer, Monar’s work, which centers a rich Guyanese creole, paints vivid pictures of Indo-Guyanese lives on the terrain of the sugar estates and elsewhere. Part of the influential Messenger group of Guyanese writers, Monar’s 1985 Backdam People, with its humor… Source ..read more

The 2024 Caribbean Digital Virtual Artist’s Residency The Caribbean Digital (TCD) and Alice Yard invite applications for their annual virtual residency program for artists of the Caribbean and its diasporas who work in digital media. The residency aims to facilitate the development of new artworks in digital media that investigate ideas and practices in Caribbean Digital Humanities and engage… Source ..read more

Join us from Feb 26-March 4, 2024 for the next JWIL online residency. This residency will be a collaboration between sx salon (@sxsalon) and JWIL (@jwilonline). Linzey Corridon (@westawestindian) will be sharing reflections on the life and work of Dr. Cliff Lashley, the Jamaican librarian-critic, poet, and aesthete (1935-1993). Cliff Lashley died in February 1993. In 2023, to mark the 30th… Source ..read more

JWIL mourns the passing on January 14, 2024 of the Trinidadian-British writer, Lakshmi Persaud, one of the first and most influential writers to narrate the complex experiences of Indo-Caribbean women both in the region and in the diaspora. Born in 1939 in Tunapuna, Trinidad and having lived in the UK since the 1970s, Persaud was a teacher, a journalist, and author of five novels: Butterfly in the… Source ..read more

JWIL mourns the passing of Jamaican Canadian dub poet, Klyde Broox, who died January 20, 2024 at the age of 66. From his prizewinning “Ode to Bamboo,” Klyde made an impact on the dub poetry scene, both in Jamaica and Canada. He mastered the art of word and syllabic play, deployed Rastafarian dread talk like a “weapon of mass instruction,” and startled and surprised his audiences with his incisive… Source ..read more

Join us from Monday Dec. 18 – Dec. 25 for our JWIL online residency with Pamela Mordecai (@Refracting ) who will be sharing her poetry and reflecting on her writing. Pamela Mordecai is a poet, fiction writer, editor and publisher. She is the author of eight collections of poetry. Her most recent book, de Book of Joseph (2022) was one of the finalists for the Poetry prize for the 2023 OCM Bocas… Source ..read more

The Editorial Team of the Journal of West Indian Literature (JWIL) joins many in Jamaica and beyond in mourning the loss of Edward Baugh, who passed away on December 9, 2023, at the age of 87. Eddie, as many knew him, was a distinguished poet, scholar, and teacher. Eddie has been with us from the very start. His intellectual generosity, and dedicated commitment are indelibly marked on the… Source ..read more

Join us from November 20-27 for another JWIL online residency. For this residency, Randi Gill-Sadler (@TheRandiSavage) will revisit the inspiration, reception, and literary afterlife of Paule Marshall’s second novel The Chosen Place, The Timeless People. Diasporic in both its content and its reach, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People offers significant insights into contemporary discussions of… Source ..read more

Call for Papers: JWIL November 2024 Special Issue on George Lamming This special issue of the Journal of West Indian Literature seeks essays and reflections on the work of George Lamming. When Lamming passed away in 2022, the Caribbean lost one of its great authors and public intellectuals. Beginning with his poetry published in BIM and his first novel In the Castle of My Skin (1953)… Source ..read more