Travelling to a new city for a literary festival always gives rise to opposing pulls between the desire to explore your surroundings and the desire to see what the festival has on offer.
But BOCAS helpfully had their opening night party at the Queen's Park Oval - which was the primary location I was interested in seeing.
The evening had started with a panel discussion on cricket, and the festival continued to honour the location of their opening party with readings from cricket-related stories; and Marina Salandy-Brown, in her welcome address, invoked CLR James in one sentence and the victory of the West Indies men and women's cricket teams in the recent T20 World Cup in another. (Earlier in the day, I was delighted to see a cricket match in progress at the Queen's Park Savannah with both boys and girls playing together).
The electronic screen on the ground, which I have often seen via televised transmissions during international tours, blazed out a welcome message for the BOCAS festival. I hope that piqued the interest of some of the young men and women playing football (!!!) on the grounds while we celebrated on high in one of the boxes, and that they might turn up for the festival events later today.
The British Council is programme partner of the Bocas Lit Fest. For a full programme of events see the website of Bocas.
Read part one of Kamila's blog here.
Read part three of Kamila's blog here.
