Bocas Lit Fest announced that Trinidadian Canadian writer Shani Mootoo will discuss her book Oh Witness Dey! (Book*hug Press, 2024) on Tuesday, June 24, at 5:30pm at The Writers Centre, located at 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair, Port of Spain, Trinidad. This event is free and open to the public. [Guests are encouraged to bring their pre-owned copies of Mootoo’s previously published works to be autographed.]
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday writes, “On her latest collection of poetry, Oh Witness Dey!, shortlisted for the 2025 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and named a finalist for the 2024 Big Other Book Award for Poetry, Shani Mootoo says this verse writing is not only personal; it is deeply rooted in home, ‘The poetry, the ideas, the song of Oh Witness Dey! could only have come out of my enduring passion for TT. It is, therefore, an immense privilege to read from it to its perfect audience at The Writers Centre.’”
Description: Shani Mootoo’s great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad as indentured labourers by the British. There is no record of where they were from in India or whether it was kidnapping, trickery, or false promises of wealth that took them to the Caribbean.
In Oh Witness Dey! Mootoo expands the question of origins, from ancestry percentages and journey narratives, through memory, story, and lyric fragments. These vibrant poems transcend the tropes of colonial violence through saints and spices, rebellion and joy, to reimagine tensions and solidarities among various diasporas. They circumvent traditional conventions of style to find new routes toward understanding. They invite the reader to witness history, displacements, and the legacies of our inheritance.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/bocaslitfest
For more information on the book, see https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/shani-mootoo/oh-witness-dey-by-shani-mootoo/