The Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours are back for CARIFESTA XV!

CARIFESTA XV will once again bring Bridgetown’s rich cultural and literary heritage to life with the Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours (BLBT) on August 22nd & 28th, 2025. This signature event invites festival-goers to discover Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison, Barbados’ UNESCO World Heritage Property, through the voices and works of the island’s writers.

A Journey Through Words and Place

First launched in 2013 by Barbados’ Poet Laureate Esther Phillips and ArtsEtc co-founders Robert Edison Sandiford and Linda M. Deane, the tours revolutionized the way locals and visitors experienced the capital city. Bridgetown, as audiences had never seen it before, became a stage where literature and history merged, where poems, essays, and songs could be heard in the very spaces that inspired them.

The inaugural tour of 2014’s Bim LitFest revealed a centuries-old city layered with stories: Winston Farrell’s “De Bus Man” recited at Independence Square, Linda M. Deane’s “Boats with Names that Rock” heard as the bus rolled toward the Careenage, Clennell Wickham’s incisive newspaper columns at the wharf, and even the Mighty Gabby’s “Bridgetown Market” echoing through Cheapside. Each stop peeled back the surface of Bridgetown to reveal the enduring voice of its writers.

Landmarks, Legacies, and Living Literature

Highlights of past tours included intimate visits to the Round House, ancestral home of poet Kamau Brathwaite, and to Woodville, the Chelsea Road residence of Frank Collymore, where participants stepped into the very room that gave birth to Bim, the iconic literary journal that helped define Caribbean literature. These stops, alongside public readings of works by H.A. Vaughan, John Wickham, Austin “Tom” Clarke, and Esther Phillips herself, cemented the BLBT as both an educational treasure and a cultural pilgrimage.

Fresh Perspectives for 2025

For CARIFESTA XV, the Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours will be led by gifted and knowledgeable storytellers Ayesha Gibson-Gill and Sarah Venable. Ayesha is founder of StoryShyft, creators of a recently unveiled interactive “Mural Experience” that will also feature as a stop on the tour, offering a powerful new way to encounter Bridgetown’s layered stories.

Festival-goers will also be able to purchase works by authors featured on the tour and from publisher-partners, including StoryShyft and ArtsEtc.

Preserving Culture, Inspiring the Future

“The Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours allow the story of the city to be told through its writers,” says co-creator Linda M. Deane. “Writers have a different way of looking at their surroundings, and tours like this add value to the heritage experience of Bridgetown while giving new generations of Barbadians, a vital connection to their literary history.”

For the creators of BLBT, the event has always been more than just a tour. It is an act of

discovery—of unearthing little-known voices, celebrating the famous ones, and passing on a living tradition of storytelling to future generations.

Event Details:

● What: Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours – CARIFESTA XV Edition

● When: Saturday, August 23, &; Thursday, August 28, 2025; 11:00 am both days

● Where: Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison (UNESCO World Heritage Property)

boarding at Golden Square Freedom Park, Bridgetown, at 10:45 a.m.