Description
The Birthday Cake by T&T author Rajiv Ramkhalawan presents an excerpt from a novel in progress. Selected as a Bocas Emerging Writers Fellow, Ramkhalawan began his forthcoming novel during his fellowship term, which included mentoring by author Ingrid Persaud.
The Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowships, awarded simultaneously in 2022, were a pair of one-time fellowships for emerging Caribbean-based writers in English, in two categories: prose (awarded to Ramkhalawan) and poetry (awarded to Jannine Horsford). They were intended to support early-career Caribbean writers in advancing or completing a book manuscript or other body of work.
The fellowships were made possible by generous donations from Canisia Lubrin, winner of the overall 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; Dionne Brand, winner of the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; Christina Sharpe, judge for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; and Allyson Holder.
Rajiv Ramkhalawan’s writing is as delicious as the food in this chapbook. (Where can I get that birthday cake?) The thriller elements had me turning pages as fast as I could read; my only regret is that there were so few pages to turn. I can’t wait to devour the whole novel!
— Breanne Mc Ivor, author of The God of Good Looks and Where There Are Monsters