Dannabang Kuwabong and Eric “Pink Panther” Taylor were announced as the St Martin Book Fair Presidents’ Award 2025 recipients on Saturday, June 7, 2025.
The St Martin’s Book Fair was founded by Shujah Alex Reiph, president of Conscious Lyrics Foundation, and Lasana M. Sekou, projects director of House of Nehesi Publishers, in 2003. The 2025 edition, which is the twenty-second, had the theme “Redefining,” Safiyya Chance as Literary Ambassador, ran from June 5 – 7, 2025. It included literary recitals, cultural performances, workshops, and exhibitions of educational and multimedia tools with upcoming and famous guest authors, workshops, and panelists from St. Martin and around the world.
One of the highlights was the announcement of the President’s Award at the closing ceremony of the fair. It is presented to individuals and institutions whose work is noted for its excellence and for combining literary, cultural, and liberation components in the service of progress, of their people or nation, and of humanity. It is named after the presidents of the book fair’s founding organizations—Conscious Lyrics Foundation and House of Nehesi Publishers — and the president of the University of St. Martin, which hosts the event’s main day of book exhibitions, workshops, and its symposium. Previous winners include Edwidge Danticat, Benny Wenda, Norman Girvan, George Lamming, Quince Duncan, Nicole Cage, Casa de las Americas, Rhoda Arrindell, Kamau Brathwaite, Will Johnson, Dorbrene O’Marde, and Derek Walcott.
The 2025 winners were revealed at the closing ceremony in conjunction with the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) Conference 2025 at the Simpson Bay Resort ballroom on Saturday, June 7. There were joint winners in Dannabang Kuwabong and Eric “Pink Panther” Taylor. Dannabang Kuwabong is a Ghanaian author and professor based in the Caribbean who teaches and publishes on African Diaspora, Caribbean and Women’s Literatures, Postcolonial Theory, Literature and the Environment, and Trauma Narrative at the University of Puerto Rico. He is also the author of the “main book” launched at the book fair—Rhetoric of Resistance, Labor of Love: The Ecopoetics of Nationhood in the Poetry and Prose of Lasana M. Sekou—published by HNP.
Pink Panther’s calypso music legacy spans more than 50 years. In 2013, he won his country’s National Calypso Monarch title with the song “Travel Woes / Crying in the Chapel,” composed by the legendary Chalkdust. In 2019, a bandstand was named in his honor in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. He was a guest artist at the St. Martin Book Fair, where he conducted a kaiso workshop and performed extempo alongside noted St. Martin singer Clement “Kaiso Brat” Richards during the Literary Evening and Main Book Launch.
The St. Martin Book Fair also paid tribute to individuals at its opening ceremony by dedicating this year’s festival to the memory of Barry Sample (USA), a long-time supporter of the event, and Dr. Velma Pollard (Jamaica), a well-known educator, linguist, fiction writer, and poet—both of whom passed away earlier this year.
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