Congratulations to Olive Senior on the publication of her new novel, Paradise Once (Akashic Books, Ltd., 2025). The 2025 Bocas Lit Fest will be the site for the first launch of Senior’s book, along with Celeste Mohammed’s Ever Since We Small. On May 4, from 4:30 to 5:30pm, the authors will join host Lisa Outar for a conversation about illuminating the shadowy parts of Caribbean history. This launch will take place at the Old Fire Station (NALIS, Hart and Abercromby St., Port of Spain, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago).
At the Bocas Lit Fest, the author will also feature in the festival event “WE LIT Spotlight: A conversation with Olive Senior,” on May 2, 2025, at 10:30am (Old Fire Station).
Description: Paradise Once is a sweeping historical novel that brings to life the resiliency of the indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean, whose culture was virtually destroyed within two generations of their “discovery” by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
In 1513 in Cuba, an entire village is wiped out by Spanish forces for no discernible reason. Had the villagers offended their spiritual guides―the cemíes―as one faction claimed, by incorporating foreign practices?
Four youthful survivors escape the massacre―three indigenous and one African runaway. They start off on separate perilous paths, not knowing they have been chosen by the cemíes to carry out a sacred mission―to ensure the survival of a Sacred Bundle that will enable a Taíno revival in future generations. But first, an epic spiritual battle must be played out.
In this love song to the Caribbean, Olive Senior authentically evokes the physical and spiritual worlds of its First Peoples and the survivors―indigenous and African―who will become the resistance fighters known in history as Cimarrones or Maroons.
Olive Senior, Jamaica’s 2021-2024 Poet Laureate, is the award-winning author of 18 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature and other published work. Her many awards include Canada’s Writers Trust Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies and the Gold Medal of the Institute of Jamaica. Her work has been taught internationally and is widely translated. Olive Senior is from Jamaica and lives in Toronto, Canada, but returns frequently to the Caribbean which remains central to her work.
For more information, see https://www.bocaslitfest.com/events/book-launch-celeste-mohammed-and-olive-senior/
Also see https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Once-Novel-Olive-Senior/dp/1636142273 and https://www.bocaslitfest.com/participant/olive-senior/
Congratulations to Olive Senior on the publication of her new novel, Paradise Once (Akashic Books, Ltd., 2025). The 2025 Bocas Lit Fest will be the site for the first launch of Senior’s book, along with Celeste Mohammed’s Ever Since We Small. On May 4, from 4:30 to 5:30pm, the authors will join host Lisa Outar for a conversation