The writing emerging from the 2017 and 2018 Goddard Enterprises National Independence Festival of Creative Arts Literary Competition (Barbados) more than encapsulates this moment - be it prose, poetry, fiction or nonfiction; speculative or real; dealing with the local, foreign or just plain strange; whether embracing the tragic, the magical, the taboo or the silly. There are words inside this NIFCA Winning Words for every kind of reader: academic, student, seasoned, cynical, hopeful - and the adventurous newcomer keen for that encounter with Bajan storytelling.

The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words Anthology 2017/2018 does pretty much what it says on the label. It follows the lead of the previous three volumes in this series by continuing a tradition of literary excellence. It also comes as Barbadian literature is having a moment and presenting itself as something other, unpredictable, alluring - an animal with strange markings, to be approached sidelong and with caution, but engaged with nonetheless.