Simpson Bay:--- Professor Dannabang Kuwabong, and kaisonian Eric “Pink Panther” Taylor, received the Presidents’ Award at the 22nd edition of the St. Martin Book Fair on June 7, 2025.
“The Presidents’ Award is the final highlight of the annual three-day St. Martin Book Fair,” said book fair coordinator Shujah Reiph.
Kuwabong and Panther were on hand to accept their award at the Simpson Bay Resort ballroom, where the Closing Ceremony of the literary festival was held in conjunction with the closing ceremony of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) Conference 2025, said Reiph.
“The Presidents’ Award 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,” said Lasana M. Sekou, from House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).
Dannabang Kuwabong is a Ghanaian author and professor based in the Caribbean. He 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.
Dr. Kuwabong 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.
Panther 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.
Previous winners of the Presidents Award, which the Daily Herald has called a “prestigious award,” include Edwidge Danticat (USA/Haiti), Benny Wenda (West Papua), Norman Girvan (Jamaica), George Lamming (Barbados), Quince Duncan (Costa Rica), Nicole Cage (Martinique), Casa de las Americas (Cuba), Rhoda Arrindell (St. Martin), Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados), Will Johnson (Saba), Dorbrene O’Marde (Antigua and Barbuda), and Derek Walcott (St. Lucia).
The Presidents’ Award is named after the presidents of the book fair’s founding organizations—Conscious Lyrics Foundation (CLF) and House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP)—and the president of the University of St. Martin (USM), which hosts the lit fest’s main day of book exhibitions, workshops, and its symposium.
According to Reiph, 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.
CLF and the St. Martin Book Fair Committee organized the St. Martin Book Fair, June 5 – 7, 2025, in collaboration with Computech, USM, SOS Radio 95.9 FM, and in consultation with HNP.
