Calabash moves ‘For Word’ again for 2023
Published:Thursday | February 16, 2023 | 12:30 AMAaliyah Cunningham/Gleaner Writer
Following four cancellations since 2020, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Calabash International Literary Festival is moving ‘For Word’ with the 2023 staging of the highly anticipated event. Clinging to the theme that the show has had since the postponed 2020 event, an overjoyed and relieved Justine Henzell, one of the festival’s founders, is happy to now be heading back to Treasure Beach in St Elizabeth for what she describes as the perfect event for showcasing the most fantastic literary works.
“We are really excited to be back after this long pandemic pause. The last staging was 2018, and 2020 had to be cancelled; and then various pandemic issues happened, [so that’s] why we didn’t have it. Treasure Beach is very important to us and we didn’t want to take any chances bringing thousands of people into the community unless we thought it was safe and that was foremost in our minds,” she explained of the shows absence.
The biennial festival which started in 2001 was last scheduled for May 2022. During the heights of the pandemic, while many popular events went online, the conceptualisers maintained that they would not go virtual because of the benefit that show has on the Treasure Beach community. Over the years, travellers and visitors from across the island and the globe journey down to the parish, boosting community tourism and other economic sectors within the area. Though the festival has not been officially launched, Henzell says that with just the announcement of its return, things have already started to pick up.
“Everybody is excited for Calabash. The audience is ready, they are booking and are booked already in Treasure Beach. The Treasure Beach community is excited, the Calabash community is excited, so it is all systems go,” she commented.
The Calabash International Literary Festival officially launches in April and the event will span May 26-28. At this time, Henzell says she is unable to get into details about which literary stars will be a part of this year’s line-up, but she can assure the audience that they will be bringing the same vibe that people have grown to love across the decades.
“It will continue to be three days and two nights of readings and live music; and what it does is just highlight fantastic literary work from all over the world. It really is an international festival and it gives audience a chance to hear diverse voices right here in Jamaica. And that is helpful not only to the audience, but to the emerging writers in Jamaica,” Henzell said.
Names such as Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Jamaica Kincaid, Derek Walcott, Junot Diaz, Elizabeth Alexander, Russell Banks, Edwidge Danticat, Caryl Phillips, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mervyn Morris, Kei Miller, Marlon James, and Eleanor Catton are among the authors who have been in previous festivals.
The Calabash International Literary Festival was founded by novelist Colin Channer with the support of two friends, poet Kwame Dawes and Henzell, who is the show’s producer. Their aim was simply to create a world-class literary festival with roots in Jamaica and branches reaching out into the wider world.
The show, often hailed as a ‘cultural Mecca’, is described as ‘the greatest likkle festival, in the greatest likkle district, in the greatest likkle country in the world’.