Lennox Honychurch’s Resistance, Refuge, Revival: The Indigenous Kalinagos of Dominica, has been shortlisted for the 2025 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

“Resistance Refuge Revival: The Indigenous Kalinagos of Dominica by Dominican anthropologist and archaeologist Lennox Honychurch is an “epic account,” say the judges, “that restores to the Caribbean a story that should be our lingua franca. This elegant and accessible story is a gift to the region, its artists, its students, its Kalinago population, and Indigenous activists throughout the Americas … We are left with the ethical imperative of centring this encounter as we go forward into the future.”  Read more about the other selections on the Bocas Lit Fest website. 

First presented in 2011, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature is an annual award for Caribbean authors. It recognizes books in three genre categories – poetry, fiction and literary nonfiction.

The shortlists for the 2025 OCM Bocas Prize are:

Poetry

• Polkadot Wounds, by Anthony Vahni Capildeo (Carcanet)
• West of West Indian, by Linzey Corridon (Mawenzi House)
• Some of Us Can Go Back Home, by Yashika Graham (Blue Banyan)
• Getting Through: New and Selected Poems, by Mervyn Taylor (Beltway Editions)
• Coco Island, by Christine Roseeta Walker (Carcanet)

Fiction

• Village Weavers, by Myriam J.A. Chancy (Tin House)
• Sweet Li Jie, by David Dabydeen (Peepal Tree Press)
• Pages of the Sea, by Anne Hawk (Biblioasis/WeatherGlass Books)
• The Believers: Stories, by A.K. Herman (A.R. Phillips)
• Sweetness in the Skin, by Ishi Robinson (Penguin Michael Joseph)

Nonfiction

• Salvage: Readings from the Wreck, by Dionne Brand (Knopf Canada/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• We’re Alone, by Edwidge Danticat (Graywolf Press)
• Resistance Refuge Revival: The Indigenous Kalinagos of Dominica, by Lennox Honychurch (Papillote Press)
• Global Guyana: Shaping Race, Gender, and Environment in the Caribbean and Beyond, by Oneka LaBennett (NYU Press)
• Mother Archive: A Dominican Family Memoir, by Erika Morillo (University of Iowa Press)

The winners in the three genre categories will be announced on 6 April, and the overall winner will be announced on 3 May at the 2025 Bocas Lit Fest.

Read more about the Bocas Lit Fest and past winners here.