CARIFESTA Brought Many Gains

by Dr. Anderson Reynolds

Coming on the heels of the publication of my two latest books—Magna: A Memoir of the Enduring Human Spirit, and The Promised Land—CARIFESTA XV couldn’t have come at a better time for me, for I viewed the festival as a great opportunity to expand my readership. But it turned out that gaining a larger market for my books was the least of the fruits of my attendance and participation.

Besides a Grand Market offering everything from books, apparel, footwear, crafts, and condiments from across the region, CARIFESTA XV presented an amazing profusion of folk, masquerade, dance, film, theatre, music, drums, steelpan, fashion, culinary, and heritage (hair and beauty salon) workshops and presentations, as well as a series of weighty intellectual discourse on the issues confronting the progress of Caribbean artists, culture and society. To ensure the region’s youths were fully invested in the CARIFESTA enterprise, the festival included a Youth Village where youths showcased their talents and attended presentations and workshops geared towards enhancing craft. My only regret was that, despite a diet of only five hours of sleep and plenty of espresso, I missed out on many great sessions, especially since I had prioritized attending the literary events and maintaining a presence at the literary market where my books were on display and being sold.

Every night, countries took turns presenting a Country Night of cultural expression on the main stage of CARIFESTA village. On Monday 25 August, for its Country Night, accompanied by a folk band, St. Lucia presented a mesmerizing blend of poetry, folk songs and dances that gave me goosebumps. Of course, most countries presented an equally enthralling Country Night; it’s just that, well, I’m partial to St. Lucia, as I imagine most people in attendance were partial to their own country’s renditions. In any event, all St. Lucians can be proud, for St. Lucia more than held its own.

CARIFESTA and the “White Gaze”

For me, one of the key takeaways from the festival, and a theme that was evident throughout, was that despite our differences we are one people, we are the same people. Our commonality far outweighs our differences; what we have in common (heritage, history, culture) are the things of substance, while the differences—accents, skin tone, incident of colonial masters—are for the most part superficial. Therefore, it behooves us to look beyond the surface and see ourselves in one another. I suspect that CARIFESTA XV accelerated that process.

CARIFESTA XV also impressed upon me that no matter what CARICOM country or territory we are from, we are all variations of the same theme.  Slightly different ways of preparing the same dishes, different patois (whether English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Dutch) with the same African syntax, different musical strains (Reggae, Soca, Calypso, Zouk, Merengue, Bachata, Salsa), but just variations of African rhythms.

CARIFESTA was a world where white people were virtually absent. Throughout my stay in Barbados and my immersion into CARIFESTA, I had the surreal feeling that the world was populated with just black people, of whom the only way to tell the difference: what country or continent they were from, was by their accents. Of whom their ascent was the only distinguishable feature. For example, when I came across members of the St. Lucian delegation, the only way I knew they were St. Lucians was by virtue of their accent, their team-St. Lucia-labeled T-shirts, or their waving of St. Lucian flags.

Toni Morrison, my favorite author and my foremost writing coach (though we never met), said that by the time she was starting her writing career, she noticed that most books by African Americans were written under a white gaze, meaning that while writing, the authors were acutely conscious that white people were looking over their shoulders. In sharp contrast, she noticed that this white gaze was nowhere to be found in the writings of African authors such as Chinua Achebe, who didn’t have to contend with a white presence. Therefore, she made a concerted effort to minimize this white gaze effect in her writing. Meaning, her books were mostly about African Americans, for African Americans, and as much as possible devoid of the editorial, censoring, judging white gaze. Well, I think CARIFESTA XV would have made Toni Morrison proud. CARIFESTA XV had no white gaze. It was a festival by Caribbean and African people, for Caribbean and African people, with little consideration for what the rest of the world thought of it.

CARIFESTA and Caribbean Innovation

The attitude of V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad’s Nobel Prize Winner, towards the region is well known. He said, “History is built around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the West Indies” (The Middle Passage, 1962). The fact that our civilization has given the world reggae, calypso, soca, zouk, and other genres, and steelpan, the only acoustic musical instrument invented since the 19th century; the fact that based on the performance of Jamaicans alone, the region is over represented in the area of track and field; the fact that the West Indies is historically a cricket power that has singlehandedly changed the way the game is played and in the 1980’s and 1990’s totally dominated the sport; the fact that the region is well represented in world literature, both in terms of quantity and quality; and the fact that with three Nobel Prize Winners (Naipaul included), on a per capita basis, the region is over represented in intellectual might,  seemed not to have registered.

But even without knowledge of these achievements, the CARIFESTA experience alone would have disabused Naipaul of this notion. It would have made clear to Naipaul that he harbored a misconception of output, technology, and innovation. He may have construed production and technology as shining apparatuses like computers, cameras, automobiles, airplanes, ships, skyscrapers, etc. From that perspective, one can see how he would conclude that technology and innovation are the exclusive domains of North America, Europe, and other large countries. However, as CARIFESTA clarifies, if we were to look beyond those most obvious manifestations of technology and production, then it would become clear that the West Indies is a region of great cultural, creative, and innovative vigor. For how else can one explain the region’s over-representation in so many areas of endeavor? From carnival to music, literature, and sports, the West Indian civilization has left its mark on the world. Indeed, there is a Caribbeanization of world culture. Enmeshed in CARIFESTA XV, I had the eerie feeling that Caribbean and African culture was all there was in the world.

Now, Naipaul may have rebutted with, Cultural output is a fanciful notion that has little to do with survival and material wellbeing, after all, it isn’t concerned with food, shelter, clothing, and security. Well, if so, how wrong would he be!  Artistic and cultural expressions are all about storytelling, and some scholars posit that stories (myths, histories, fables, artwork) serve as one of the glues of civilization, in that they provide the “shared framework of values, identity and understanding” that unites people across time and space and has enabled large, complex (and even geographically dispersed) societies to thrive and endure. Hence, the very survival of the West Indian civilization may be predicated on art and culture—the narratives artists spawn.

West Indian inventiveness and creative vigor would not come as a surprise to Jared Diamond, for in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, he contends that, “all other things being equal, technology develops fastest in large productive regions with large human populations, many potential inventors, and many competing societies.” How does this apply to CARICOM? Well, each nation or territory in the region represents a point of innovation and technology adoption, thus CARICOM as a unit doesn’t lack potential inventors. Similarly, since most member states are independent countries and have historically experienced considerable rivalry among them, the region doesn’t lack competing societies. (Even at CARIFESTA, one sensed rivalry, one sensed that each nation or territory was trying to best the others; and the West Indies’ historical dominance in cricket may be partly explained by their large number of competing nations.)

However, with populations as low as a few thousand people, the Caribbean as a constellation of tiny states clearly falls short with regard to large productive regions and large human populations. But that’s where such regional groupings as CARICOM, CARIFESTA, and the OECS come in play. They help soften the disadvantages of limited size, for they allow the countries and territories of the region, even while competing with each other, to operate as a single, virtually contiguous population and production sphere. Extending this notion to Africa, as CARIFESTA and governments on both sides of the Atlantic seem intent on, could be a bonanza in that regard.

Africa Came to CARIFESTA

CARIFESTA XV came at an auspicious time, superficially in terms of my newest publications, but substantively in that, in recent years, West Africa and the Caribbean are increasingly becoming one cultural space. It’s been a while now that reggae and dancehall have captured the world, including Africa, but recently Afrobeat has become almost as popular in the Caribbean as reggae and soca. The music of Tems, Burna Boy, Ayra Starr, Wizkid, Tyla and others is spilling out of radio stations, supermarkets, and DJ sets as if just another Caribbean music genre. Something about the groove and rhythm of Afrobeat, its danceability, sits well with Caribbean people. The popularity of Nollywood movies (second only to Bollywood in terms of world output) among Caribbean people, which preceded that of Afrobeat, has probably also helped.

CARIFESTA XV featured delegations from at least three African countries: Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Nigeria. All three presented a theatre production as their main form of participation. Zimbabwe staged Song Unburied; Ghana, which also had a musical offering, presented Mansa Musa and the Trail of Lost Gold; and Nigeria presented Dear Kaffy: Diary of a Single Woman in Lagos.

The fewness of African countries in CARIFESTA belied the continent’s impact, for in a festival of a multiplicity of captivating presentations, the Ghanaian play, Mansa Musa and the Trail of Lost Gold, was the superstar of CARIFESTA. It is a spellbinding drama of drums, dance, song, storytelling, spectacle, pageantry, and grandeur.  It invites the audience to “step into 14th-century West Africa,” and witness the rise of the Mali empire and its ruler, Mansa Musa, who thanks in part to Mali’s gold mines, is regarded as the richest man in all of history, who incorporated Timbuktu into his empire and transformed the city into a world renowned center of learning, culture, and trade, and who at the peak of his reign made a pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca, building a masque at each of his stops, and spending so much gold that he caused the price of gold to drop precipitously in Cairo.

To orchestrate the play at CARIFESTA, the Ghanians had to come to Barbados over a month ahead of time, where they teamed up with Barbadians to form a 150-strong cast. The play was so popular at CARIFESTA that even after the Ghanians held a music workshop, staged a musical presentation and two theatre shows, the National Cultural Foundation (Barbados) had reason to host yet another Mansa Musa theatre show the day after CARIFESTA.

Mansa Musa and the Trail of Lost Gold highlights one of the most significant flaws in the teaching of West Indian history in secondary schools. In my West Indian history class, the first time we encountered ourselves as black people was as slaves on slaveships headed to the Caribbean from the coast of West Africa. Is it any wonder that, according to Shearer’s MPhil thesis (University of Oxford, 2019) on “memories of Caribbean slavery,” St. Lucians often choose to bury the past, because they find the history of slavery too painful and shameful to revisit. But who can blame them, who can be proud of being a slave? However, the West Indian narrative may take a whole different complexion if the Caribbean history taught in our schools began with the history of precolonial African civilizations, including the great Mali empire depicted in Mansa Musa and the Trail of Lost Gold, and possible pre-Columbian African visits to the Americas.

Indeed, al-Umari, the 14th-century Arab historian, reported that Abu Bakr II, the predecessor of Mansa Musa, abdicated the throne and, with a fleet of 2000 ships, launched an expedition across the Atlantic in the early 14th century. Abu Bakr II never returned, but the possibility exists that he reached the Americas.

It was in Form One of the Vieux Fort Junior Secondary School that I first found out I was a descendant of slaves, where I learnt for the first time about the slave triangle, and where my education on the plight of my ancestors on the sugar plantations began. Now, my first reaction wasn’t pity for my slave ancestors, or anger at their slave masters—that would come later. My first emotion was shame. A deep, heart-wrenching shame. A shame that shattered my world, my sense of security, my sense of well-being, my sense of self-worth.

Growing up in a society where 90 percent of the population looked no different than me, and coming of age on the philosophical diet and dispositions of the Black Power movement, the Rastafarian Revolution, and the bravado of the great Muhammad Ali, all of which/whom spoke of black superiority, I had no doubt that the black race was superior to all other races. So when I was told that my race had been subordinate to another, I was devastated.  

Yet I was luckier than most. Because this wasn’t my first encounter with Africa. My first encounter was at the age of eight in Grade Two of the Vieux Fort Plain View School, then an Evangelical missionary primary school run by Canadians with instructions based on the Canadian Curriculum. There, I learned about the boy Kofi (about my age), his African village, and his way of life, of which to me there was nothing inferior.

The third time I encountered Africans was at the age of fifteen in Form Four of the Vieux Fort Senior Secondary in my English class taught by Mr. Henning, a White Peace Corps volunteer. As part of the curriculum, we read, studied, and dramatized Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Until towards the end of the novel, when British presence and influence began to alter the way of life of the people, there was nothing inferior about the Igbo; on the contrary, to me, the novel portrayed a proud, superior, and harmonious society. Things only began to fall apart with the advent of European incursion.

I think my shame of discovering I was descended from slaves would probably have been less excruciating if the introduction to my history had begun with a narrative on African civilization.

CARIFESTA and the Union of West Africa and the Caribbean

CARIFESTA XV timing was auspicious, not only because of the present momentum towards a single Caribbean–African cultural space, but also because it coincided with a movement afoot to foster a single trade and economic space. Towards that end, there is interest on both sides of the Atlantic to establish direct flights between Africa and the Caribbean, an enterprise that shifted from the realm of possibility to reality when June 2025 the Boeing 777 aircraft of Air Pease (West and Central Africa’s largest airline) completed the historic 10-hour direct flight from Abuja, Nigeria, to Basseterre, St. Kitts, bringing African delegates for the five-day Afri-Caribbean Expo. The government of Antigua and Barbuda has since announced plans to establish a new airline, Antigua Airways, specifically for conducting direct flights between Antigua and West Africa. Afreximbank, the African Export–Import Bank that serves as a “financial provider to African governments and private businesses in support of intra-African and Caribbean trade,” was so taken up with Caribbean businesses participating in the 4th Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2025) in Algiers, that it was willing to secure a direct flight between the Caribbean and the Algerian capital for the event. And in terms of a fluid African-Caribbean cultural and economic space, it is also noteworthy that in 2023, the African Union formally designated CARICOM as the sixth region of Africa.

Closer to home (St. Lucia), recently the prime minister of St. Lucia, Philip J. Pierre, hosted Nigerian president Bola Tinubu, who arrived in St. Lucia with an entourage of over 100 personnel, requiring two airliners. The visit was viewed as “rekindling ancestral bonds” and deepening diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties between Nigeria and the Eastern Caribbean. Moreover, it served as an impromptu Nigerian-OECS summit in that the president conferenced with prime ministers and other high-level representatives of the Eastern Caribbean,  participated in a high-level St. Lucia-Nigeria bilateral meeting that resulted in the establishment of a Nigeria-OECS Joint Committee charged with formulating an immediate plan to operationalize a scholarship program for OECS nationals to study in Nigeria, exploring direct flights between West Africa and the Caribbean, and “identifying opportunities for increased bilateral investment and cultural exchange.” As an act of goodwill and in recognition of his efforts to fortify linkages between Africa and the Caribbean, President Bola Tinubu was bestowed the Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Lucia (KCOSL).

Shortly after the president’s visit, as part of Prime Minister Pierre’s 2025 Emancipation Celebration address, he announced that his administration had taken steps to introduce African studies into the curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools. The prime minister has also started the process of making Kwéyòl, the country’s mother tongue (thought to employ French, Ameridian, and African vocabulary but with a West African syntax), part of the national school curriculum. A month after President Tinubu’s visit, and just hours before Team St. Lucia would enthral the audience at CARIFESTA with their Country Night performance, the prime minister announced the rollout of an EC$350,000 Creative Economy Grant Fund, whereby creatives would receive grants of $5,000 to $10,000.

The prime minister should be applauded for these initiatives, but in terms of the teaching of history, he needs to go much further. The government needs to mandate that all secondary school students complete a St. Lucia History Course that’s on par with the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), and require a pass of “B” or better in said course as a prerequisite for civil service employment. Additionally, the government should consider placing selected St. Lucian books on the reading lists of all secondary schools for literature, history, and social studies.

Derek Walcott would have applauded the region’s renewed emphasis on its culture, for the Nobel Laureate said that the region “has only one strength and that is their culture.” And so he had long advocated for greater government investment in culture, say, in the form of art scholarships and such facilities as theatre houses.

The same way I thought it was auspicious that CARIFESTA XV would arrive on the heels of my two latest books, I thought it was auspicious that the Nigerian president’s visit would come just a month after the publication of one of the new books, Magna: A Memoir of the Enduring Spirit, which narrates the life and death of my mother and the many lessons to be drawn. The book suggests that my mother’s ancestors were most likely from Igboland, Nigeria.  DNA ancestry results suggest she was 89.3 % West African, 3.7% other African, and 5.9% European; and of her West African ancestry, she was 48.9% Igbo (Nigerian), 32.3% Ghanaian, Liberian and Sierra Leonean, and 8.1% other West African.

Interestingly, my own DNA ancestry results suggest that I was even more of an Igbo than my mother, as the DNA results indicate that I was 85.5 percent West African, and of this West African heritage, I was 61.7 % Igbo, compared to my mother’s 48.9 %.

That trade and economic partnerships between Africa and the Caribbean would follow closer cultural affinities and exchanges isn’t surprising. In his path-breaking book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington defines a civilization as the “highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species.” Huntington also points out that because members of the same civilization share a common core of values and beliefs, there is a greater level of trust, comfort, and ease of understanding and communication among them.  Therefore, members of the same civilization tend to trade and engage in greater economic and other exchanges with each other, and efforts at forming economic, political, sporting, and cultural unions tend to be more successful than those that involve people of different civilizations. From this perspective, one can deduce that the greater the cultural exchange, understanding, appreciation, and integration that develops between Africa and the Caribbean, the more likely trade and economic partnerships will blossom between the two regions.

Therefore, in terms of establishing closer trade and economic linkages with Africa, a CARIFESTA that includes a heavy dose of African participation is on the right track. Once direct flights are established between the two regions, there is less reason why Africa can’t serve as a CARIFESTA venue, and why Caribbean countries can’t participate in such African cultural enterprises as the Nigeria and Ghana Yam Festival, the Burkina Faso Film Festival (FESPACO), and the Gambia International Festival of the Roots. African artists are already flying over to perform at the St. Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival. For example, the 2024 edition featured both Joeboy and Davido. African cultural groups should also consider featuring bands in Caribbean carnivals.

Too often, the Caribbean has looked almost exclusively towards America and its former colonial masters for economic and development salvation. A relationship that is sometimes accompanied by disrespect and disdain. It was long overdue for us to emphasize and strengthen our relationships with Africa, India, Brazil, Latin America, and other regions of the Global South. Indeed, I suspect that the solutions to most of our development challenges are contained within CARICOM itself; we simply have to take a closer look at and learn from each other. Each member state or territory is doing at least one thing right. Too often, we have looked towards America and Europe for answers when the solutions are within the region. The brilliance of CARIFESTA XV suggests that much.

Kudos to Barbados

Kudos to Barbados for successfully pulling off such an ambitious cultural enterprise. The land of George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite, Garfield Sobers, and Rihanna is definitely heeding Walcott’s advice on investing in its culture. Working at breakneck speed, an area of Waterford, St. Michael, covered with bush, was magically transformed into CARIFESTA XV Village, the main venue of the festival. 

Ahead of CARIFESTA, Barbados took a bold move by borrowing US$75 million from the Latin American Development Bank to augment its cultural infrastructure and modernize the navigational equipment at Grantley Adams International Airport.

Part of the loan was used to build the Richard Stoute Amphitheatre at the National Botanical Gardens in Waterford, located across from CARIFESTA Village. It was here that CARIFESTA XV hosted its Super Concerts, headlined by artists such as Machel Montano, Kassav, and Morgan Heritage.

The loan was also used to establish a National Performing Arts Centre in the vicinity of the Newton Slave Burial Ground, the island’s largest known slave burial ground, where an estimated 570 slaves were laid to rest; thus, with this art center, the nation was both honoring its ancestors and investing in its artistic future. Sitting on high ground (a rarity in Barbados), the Newton National Arts Centre is a futuristic, naturally ventilated theatre. Although not fully completed, it was fitting (both in terms of honoring ancestors and the superstar of CARIFESTA) that this was where Mansa Musa and the Trail of Lost Gold made its epic Caribbean stand, keeping audiences spellbound.

These additional investments in theatre and performing spaces are even more impressive when you consider that Barbados already had a decent number of such facilities. Take theatre halls (not cinema), for example, I counted no less than four halls specifically designed for theatre—Combermere School Theatre Hall, Frank Collymore Hall, Daphine Joseph Hackett Theatre, and UWI’s Walcott Warner Theatre.

Caribbean Nations Should Take a Page from Barbados

Earlier, I said that each Caribbean nation is doing at least one thing right that the others can learn from. I can’t think of any properly constituted theatre hall in St. Lucia. Therefore, besides supporting creatives with grants, the government may want to take a page from Barbados and invest in such cultural facilities as theatre halls.

Interestingly, there was a cost-effective way to accomplish this. The government has built what is referred to as community centers around the island. With a little bit more planning and imagination, these community halls could have been built to the standards and specifications of proper theatre halls, thus serving dual purposes. Likewise, the government should consider incorporating proper theatre halls in some of the new building complexes it plans to construct (schools or otherwise). For example, the government has earmarked the construction of an administrative center for my hometown of Vieux Fort. It is unconscionable for the administrative complex not to include a proper theatre/conference hall.

Now, it is true that Barbados (280K) has about one-third more people than St. Lucia (180k), and its economy (US$7.2B) is nearly three-times the size of St. Lucia’s (US$2.5B), but, clearly, the country that has produced the world’s highest per capita Nobel Laureates, and which in the 1950s and 1960s, during it’s cultural renaissance or revolution that has been compared with the Harlem Renaissance,  led West Indian theatre, can afford at least one or two theatre halls that meet international standards. After all, generations of St. Lucian dramatists, from Harold Simmons (1914 – 1966) to Roderick (1930 – 2000) and Derek (1930-2017) Walcott, to McDonald Dixon, to Kendel Hippolyte, to Adrian Augier, to Travis Weekes have advocated for proper theatre spaces. Maybe CARIFESTA XV and the example of Barbados will motivate the government to invest in such cultural facilities.

St. Lucia has done a great job with its jazz festival, likely the envy of the world. However, during my CARIFESTA XV sojourn, I could not help but wonder whether the land of Nobel Laureates, Darren Sammy, Julien Alfred, and the world heritage Pitons could pull off such a feat. Because, as opposed to CARIFESTA, the jazz festival is a one-dimensional enterprise.

The Highlight of My CARIFESTA

Obviously, CARIFESTA XV was a wonderful experience and an eye-opener. However, one of the highlights of the festival for me was my meeting with Canisia Lubrin and attending her poetry workshop. Outside literary circles, most St. Lucians may be unaware of Lubrin, who left St. Lucia for Canada in her pre-teen years. But Walcott aside, she is the island’s most internationally acclaimed author, the Julien Alfred of St. Lucian literature.

Lubrin is the co-winner of the 2021 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in poetry. The Dyzgraphxst, her second collection of poetry, won four awards, including the Derek Walcott Prize, the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize, and the overall OCM Bocas Prize, the Caribbean’s most prestigious literature prize. And her third and most recent book, Code Noir, a collection of short stories, won the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which, with a US$150,000 award, is the world’s largest English-language literary prize for women and non-binary authors. At that rate, down the road, Lubrin, who is only 41, may well be joining Walcott and Lewis on the Nobel Laureate podium.

I was the only male and non-poet at her workshop. The ladies seemed passionate about their poetry and took the workshop seriously. However, I must confess that I wasn’t there to hone my poetry craft; I was there mainly for stargazing. I found Lubrin to be very personable and willing to engage, and I was happy to gift her a copy of Magna: A Memoir of the Enduring Spirit, more so that she would remember me than expecting her to find the time to read it. Other luminary West Indian authors attending and participating in CARIFESTA XV included Booker Prize-winning novelist Marlon James, novelist Jacob Ross, and poets Opal Palmer Adisa, and Kwame Dawes.

Besides meeting Canisia Lubrin, promoting my books, attending workshops and symposiums, and taking in the sights, arts, and entertainment, CARIFESTA brought some other tangible benefits.  I have been wanting to establish as much of a literary presence in Barbados as I enjoy in St. Lucia, and my trip to Barbados helped jump-start that process. I made an appearance on Barbados national television, sourced outlets for my books, including the UWI campus bookstore and airport gift shops, and secured a distributor for placing my books in bookstores and hotel and airport gift shops. And, as the icing on the cake, at the very first workshop I attended, I met with literary agents Tanya McKinnon (from New York) and Elise Dillsworth (from the UK). Needless to say, I was happy to give each a copy of Magna for their consideration, thus getting my foot in the door for securing a traditional publisher for my books.

Apart from Dr. Travis Weekes, who came at the tail end of the festival to promote his latest published play, Take Me To Mon Repos, I was the only St. Lucian author with a concerted presence at CARIFESTA’s Literary Market. However, with St Lucia’s twenty-year-old spoken word poet, Shyne Savory, winning the inaugural Wapax! Poetry Slam competition held at CARIFESTA XV; and with Canisia Lubrin’s poetry workshop, and her participation in the Literary Luminosity Book Reading; and with my eight books on display at the Literary Market, as well as my book launch presentations and serving as a panelist on “The Caribbean Publishing Journey” panel discussion, I think St. Lucia had a credible literary presence at CARIFESTA XV.    

About Dr. Anderson Reynolds

ANDERSON REYNOLDS was born and raised in Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, where he now resides. He holds a Ph.D. in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida and is the author of several award-winning and best-selling books, including two novels, two memoirs, and four nonfiction books on St. Lucian history, politics and society.  His books, blogs, lectures, and newspaper and magazine articles have established him as one of St. Lucia’s leading public intellectuals and a foremost authority on its socioeconomic history.

Dr. Reynolds’ writings, be it fiction or nonfiction, have been described as a world in which a great drama unfolds, where history, geography, nature, culture, the supernatural, and socioeconomic factors all combine to seal the fate of individuals, communities, or, for that matter, a whole nation or civilization. In this crucible of a world, readers are provided with deep insights into where St. Lucians come from, who they are as a people, and how they became who they are.

For more details on Dr. Reynolds’ books, blogs, and writing life, please visit his author website.