Brooklyn's First Caribbean Book Festival Debuts Next Month

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A new Brooklyn festival for book nerds is taking the Caribbean beyond Carnival.

The first-ever Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival will bring award-winning authors from across the Caribbean to bookstores across Brooklyn from Sept. 6 to Sept. 8, the Brooklyn Borough President announced.

“Brooklyn is proud to be known as the Caribbean capital of America, and it is enhanced immeasurably by the cultural influences that flow to these shores from the Caribbean islands,” said Eric Adams.

“It is important that the rich and diverse artistic expression that Brooklynites of Caribbean descent share with other cultures within our borough be highlighted and extended beyond carnivals and island-specific cuisine.”

“Caribbean beyond Carnival” will launch at Greenlight Bookstore in Prospect Lefferts Gardens , where writer Barbara Jenkins will reader from one of her best-selling novels, noon on Sept. 6.

Acclaimed Antiguan-American novelist Jamaica Kincaid — whose novel "See Now Then" won the Before Columbus Foundation America Book Award in 2014 — will host an evening of conversation at the Brooklyn Historical Society Saturday evening at 7 p.m.

And the festival will close Sunday at 3 p.m. with an afternoon of storytelling, music and poetry readings hosted by Attilah Springer, Kevin Adonis Browne and Kela Francis.

Festival events will also feature works from acclaimed authors Kei Miller, Lauren Alleyne, Paul Pryce, DaMaris Hill and more at the following venues:

• Greenlight Bookstore at 632 Flatbush Ave., Prospect Lefferts-Gardens
• 333 Lounge at 333 Flatbush Ave., Prospect Heights
• Brooklyn Historical Society at 55 Water St., DUMBO
• The Plaza at 300 Ashland at 300 Ashland Place, Fort Greene

Free tickets to festival events are available at Eventbrite.