Owing to the continued impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, organisers of the Calabash International Literary Festival have cancelled the internationally acclaimed event for the third year running.
The biannual festival, which was set for a May 27 to 29 staging on Jamaica’s picturesque Treasure Beach in St Elizabeth, now sets its sights on 2023.
“It’s a day of sad news from us to our Calabash Family. There will be no Calabash 2022, which is probably not a surprise, though is a disappointment. We will be back when it is safe to do so and when we can plan properly to welcome you all back to Treasure Beach. #CalabashForWord,” event organisers tweeted from Calabash’s Twitter page on Sunday (January 23).
The ‘day of sad news’ also coincided with the passing of Jamaican poet Ralph Thompson, an avid Calabash patron, who died on Sunday aged 93.
For her part, Justine Henzell, co-founder of Calabash, lamented the tough call to again cancel the literary event, which was last successfully staged in 2018.
“The right decisions are often not the easy ones,” Henzell wrote.
Last year’s event, cancelled a month in advance of the May 28-30 schedule, would have been Calabash’s 20th anniversary.
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