Award-winning Antigua & Barbuda author Joanne Hillhouse is this year’s recipient of the Anthony N. Sabga Award, Caribbean Excellence for Arts & Letters. As announced today in Port of Spain by Awards’ Programme Director Maria Neilson, Hillhouse and two other 2023 Laureates (women’s health doctor Dr Adesh Sirjusingh of T&T and agri-researcher Dr Mahendra Persaud of Guyana) will each receive TT$500,000 in recognition and support of their work at a gala ceremony in Trinidad in June.
Hillhouse is the author of seven books, including the adult contemporary novel Oh Gad! and a tale of growing up titled The Boy from Willow Bend. She was runner-up for the Burt Award for Young Adult Caribbean Literature in 2014 and has also published three children’s picture books.
She has long promoted the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda, through writing workshops and an annual writing prize at her non-profit, Wadadli Pen. She also mentors young writers through her Jhohadli Summer Youth Writing Project and writes about arts and culture in a newspaper column. UWI Professor Emeritus, Mervyn Morris, has said of her: “Joanne Hillhouse deserves to be better known. I
believe that as the word spreads, she will be recognized as an important Caribbean writer doing distinctive work.”
The Anthony N. Sabga Awards, Caribbean Excellence have been awarded to Caribbean nationals who excel in the fields of Arts & Letters, Entrepreneurship, Public & Civic Contributions and Science & Technology, since 2006. This year’s three Laureates join a distinguished college of 57 awardees from across the Caribbean. Nominations for the 2024 Awards are now open at ansacaribbeanawards.com. The Awards are administered by the ANSA McAL Foundation – the philanthropic arm of the ANSA McAL Group.