03/12/2025
The Neville Dawes First Book Prize celebrates the work of an emerging Caribbean poet with a $1,000 USD cash prize and publication of a full-length manuscript by the University of Nebraska Press. Run annually, the contest is open to emerging Caribbean poets who have not yet published a full-length book of poetry. Poets may reside anywhere globally, as long as they are of Caribbean origin. There is no reading fee to submit to the prize.
Neville Dawes (1926-1984) was born in Nigeria of Jamaican parents but grew up in rural Sturge Town in Jamaica. He studied for an MA at Oxford (Oriel College) and later taught in Jamaica, Ghana, and Guyana. He wrote two novels, The Last Enchantment and Interim and a critical work, Prolegomena to West Indian Literature.
Another book, Fugue and Other Writings, brings together his poetry, short stories, autobiographical writing and literary criticism. He was appointed Director of the Institute of Jamaica on his return to Jamaica and established the Institute’s short-lived but important publishing programme. Always a Marxist, he was deeply immersed in Africa, in English Literature, and in his nationalist identification with the rural Jamaican working class. His writing is located within these poles. Neville Dawes is the father of author and editor Kwame Dawes.
The Neville Dawes First Book Prize for Emerging Caribbean Poets will only accept “first book” submissions from Caribbean writers who have not published a book-length poetry collection. This includes self-published books if they were sold online, in stores, or at readings. Writers who have edited and published an anthology or a similar collection of other writers’ work
