PHILIPSBURG:--- Antonio Carmona Báez and Tadzio Bervoets received the President's Award at the 23rd edition of the St. Martin Book Fair on June 6, 2026.
The presentation of the President's Award was the final highlight of the two-day literary festival, according to Book Fair Committee member Cindy Peters.
Antonio Carmona Báez, president of the University of St. Martin (USM), was present to accept his award at the USM campus, where the fair’s annual Main Book Launch and Closing Ceremony were held. Tadzio Bervoets, who earlier conducted the environmental workshop, “Protecting and Preserving St. Martin’s Beauty. Soualigans, We Need You,” was unable to attend the ceremony because of a family commitment, Peters said.
“The President's 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, for their people or nation and for humanity,” according to House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP), a co-founding organization of the St. Martin Book Fair.
Carmona Báez has taught general social sciences and political science at the University of Puerto Rico and political science at the University of Amsterdam, where he earned a PhD in International Relations.
He is the author of State Resistance to Globalization in Cuba and numerous articles, chapters, and scholarly contributions on political economy, social policy, Caribbean labor, and decolonial thought.
Carmona Báez has served as a political analyst and consultant for Latin American embassies in The Hague and has led training workshops for African and Middle Eastern diplomats at the Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations. He also worked with the Non-Aligned Movement Chemical Weapons Convention States Parties and China in The Hague. Along with Melissa F. Weiner, he co-edited Smash the Pillars: Decoloniality and the Imaginary of Color in the Dutch Kingdom.
Tadzio Yuko Bervoets is a St. Martin writer and leading environmentalist who holds a master’s degree in Environmental Resource Management from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
His work spans coral reef conservation, marine park management, and regional environmental leadership, including the establishment of St. Maarten’s Man of War Shoal Marine Protected Area.
Bervoets is a co-founder of the Caribbean Shark Coalition and director of the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund’s BluEFin Project. His writing has appeared in St. Martin and regional news media, the climate justice anthology Writing for Our Lives, and the journal BIM: Arts for the 21st Century. His forthcoming book is titled Lamio: Stories and Poems.
Previous recipients of the Presidents Award, described by The Daily Herald as a “prestigious award,” include Edwidge Danticat (USA/Haiti), Computech (St. Martin), Benny Wenda (West Papua), Norman Girvan (Jamaica), George Lamming (Barbados), Quince Duncan (Costa Rica), Nicole Cage (Martinique), Casa de las Américas (Cuba), Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados), Will Johnson (Saba), Dorbrene O’Marde (Antigua), Rhoda Arrindell (St. Martin), and Derek Walcott (St. Lucia).
The President's Award is named in honor of the presidents of the Conscious Lyrics Foundation (CLF), House of Nehesi Publishers, and the University of St. Martin.
The St. Martin Book Fair, held June 5–6, 2026, was organized by CLF and the St. Martin Book Fair Committee in collaboration with USM, Computech, and SOS 95.9 FM.
