Marina Salandy-Brown

Marina Salandy-Brown 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) in London, one of the BBC’s few top executives from an ethnic minority background.

She is the Founder and Director of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, held annually in Trinidad and Tobago, “the biggest annual literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean”, and of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is also Co- founder of the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize.

  • In 1988 Salandy-Brown won the Sony Silver Award for Most Creative Use of Radio, and 1994 she was named Radio Journalist of the Year. She also won Programme of the Year, UK Television and Radio Industries Club, in 1990, and a Sony Gold Award, Best News Programme in 2000 for BBC Radio.
  • In 1992, she won the New York Festivals Award, Silver.
  • In 2005, she was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) by the University of Westminster.
  • In 2012, she was recognized for her achievements in the Arts in the UK during the last 50 years with an award at the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Jubilee celebrations.
  • In 2013, she was among six persons to be conferred with honorary doctorates from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, when in October the Chancellor George A. O. Alleyne presented her with the Doctor of Letters (DLitt), Honoris Causa of the University of the West Indies.

Marina Salandy-Brown is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Member of the British Council Arts and Creative Economy Advisory Committee.