Nicholas Laughlin (born 6 May 1975)"In brief"
Nicholas Laughlin's website. is a writer and editor from

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. He has been editor of '' The Caribbean Review of Books'' since 2004, and also edits the arts and travel magazine ''

Caribbean Beat ''Caribbean Beat'', founded in 1992, is a bimonthly magazine, published in Port of Spain, Trinidad, covering the arts, culture and society of the Caribbean, with a focus on the region's English-speaking territories. It is distributed in-flight by C ...

''. He is the festival and programme director of the

NGC Bocas Lit Fest The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest lit ...

, having worked alongside founder and managing director

Marina Salandy-Brown Marina Salandy-Brown FRSA, Hon. FRSL, is a Trinidadian journalist, broadcaster and cultural activist. She was formerly an editor and Senior Manager in Radio and News and Current Affairs programmes with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) i ...

since 2011.

Biography

Nicholas Laughlin was born and brought up in

Port of Spain Port of Spain (Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municip ...

, Trinidad, where he is still based. He studied English at the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in th ...

St Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

, and after graduating briefly worked as a sub-editor at the ''

Trinidad Guardian The ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'' (together with the ''Sunday Guardian'') is the oldest daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper is considered the newspaper of record for Trinidad and Tobago. History Its first edition was published ...

''. He was later employed by ''

'', becoming the magazine's editor in 2003. He also worked on reviving '' The Caribbean Review of Books'' (CRB), and the first issue of the reincarnated journal, of which he is editor, was published in May 2004. He also co-edits ''Town'', " modest literary magazine". He edited a volume of early essays by

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, ''The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are in ...

entitled ''Letters from London'' (2003, Prospect Press), and in 2009 a revised and expanded edition of

V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...

's family correspondence, entitled ''Letters between a Father and Son'' (published by Picador). Laughlin has been programme director of Trinidad's annual

since its founding in 2011 by

. He is also a co-director, with Sean Leonard and Christopher Cozier, of the non-profit contemporary art space Alice Yard, in Port of Spain. Laughlin has written book reviews, essays, profiles of writers and reportage for a range of outlets, including the ''

'', the ''Trinidad and Tobago Review'', ''Caribbean Beat'', the '' Stabroek News'', and the ''CRB''. Also a poet, he is the author of the collection ''The Strange Years of My Life'' (

Peepal Tree Press Peepal Tree Press is a publisher based in Leeds, England which publishes Caribbean, Black British, and South Asian fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and academic books. It was founded after a paper shortage in Guyana halted production of new bo ...

, 2015). He co-edited (with Nailah Folami Imoja) the anthology ''So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans'' (Peekash Press, 2018)."So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans"
Peekash Press, 2018.

Bibliography

* ''The Strange Years of My Life'' (

, 2015), * As editor (with Nailah Folami Imoja), ''So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans'' (Peekash Press, 2018),

Selected shorter writings

* "Fire next time", ''Trinidad and Tobago Review'', November 2005
"What 'Caribbean' can mean"
Guyana ''Arts Journal'', volume 2, number 2, March 2006. * "Imaginary islands", ''The Caribbean Review of Books'', May 2006.

''The Caribbean Review of Books'', November 2006.
"The distraction of Walcott vs Naipaul"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 5 June 2008.
"V.S. Naipaul: the writer as 'last free man'"
in Michael A. Bucknor and

Alison Donnell Alison Donnell is an academic, originally from the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Modern Literatures and Head of thSchool of Literature, Drama and Creative Writingat the University of East Anglia. She was previously Head of School of Literatu ...

(eds), ''The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature'', 2011.
"There Are No Islands Without the Sea"
in Tatiana Flores and Michelle A. Stephens (eds), ''Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago'', 2017.
"Remembering Derek Walcott (1930–2017) , Icon"
''Caribbean Beat'', Issue 145 (May/June 2017).

References

External links

Nicholas Laughlin's website

reviews, essays, and other writing by Nicholas Laughlin.
Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.
* Kelly Baker Josephs
"The Democracy of Ideas: A Conversation with Nicholas Laughlin"
''

SX Salon The Small Axe Project is an integrated publication undertaking devoted to Caribbean intellectual and artistic work, exercised over three platforms—''Small Axe''; ''sx salon'', and ''sx visualities''—each with a different structure, medium, and p ...

'' 3, February 2011. *

Vahni Capildeo Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo (born Surya Vahni Priya Capildeo; born 1973) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers (including V. S. ...

"DAY 21 :: VAHNI CAPILDEO ON NICHOLAS LAUGHLIN :: AT FULL ARIEL TILT"
''The Operating System'', 21 April 2014. * Anu Lakhan
"a strange conversation"
(interview), ''sx salon'' 21, February 2016. * Zakiya McKenzie
"Listen to interview with Nicholas Laughlin, Programme Director of NGC Bocas Lit Fest"
''Caribbean Literary Heritage''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Laughlin, Nicholas Living people 1975 births Trinidad and Tobago poets University of the West Indies alumni People from Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago non-fiction writers Trinidad and Tobago male writers Male non-fiction writers