Merle Collins is a writer of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her most recent novel, inspired by the story of the Grenadian mother of Malcolm X, won the 2025 Caribbean Studies Association’s Barbara Christian Award for Fiction, was shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction (UK) and longlisted for the 2024 Bocas Prize for Literature (Caribbean).

This presentation explores the literary and creative writing journey that led to the novel, Ocean Stirrings. It indicates how the novel engages with history, society, and varied colonial legacies to produce what is effectively a work of fiction with historical scaffolding. The presentation also considers aspects of the Caribbean writer’s journey toward differing engagements with language, and how the approaches of other Caribbean writers contributed to perspectives on literature, history, and the “voicing” of Caribbean stories.

Presented by the Africana Studies Program