Celeste Mohammed

Celeste Mohammed is a novelist and former lawyer from Trinidad and Tobago. Her first novel, Pleasantview, won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2022.[1] Mohammed’s literature centers the heritage and experiences of contemporary Caribbean people and heritage, often writing in Trinidadian Creole.

Biography

Mohammed was born in Trinidad and Tobago, in an Indo-Trinidadian family.[2][3] She studied law and practiced for ten years. She decided to follow her initial call to be a writer after a year-long sabbatical in 2011, during which she turned to writing as a way to grieve the loss of family and friends.[1]

She joined an MFA in Creative Writing at Lesley University, Cambridge in 2014,[4] and she graduated in 2016. The stories written for her thesis were the foundation for her first published work Pleasantview.[5][6] Her external thesis examiner encouraged Mohammed to submit her work to publishers and, in 2017, she received an acceptance from the New England Review. Mohammed stated that she was surprised “especially as the story is written in (Trinidadian English) Creole, not Standard English.”[5] Her stories were also published in other literature magazines, like Kweli Journal, and the Beloit Fiction Journal, gaining recognition.[6]

In 2018 Mohammed won the Pen/Robert J Dau Short Story Prize in 2018 for emerging writers. Between 2018 and 2020 she continued submitting her stories to publishers and got several rejections, until Pleasantview was published on May 4, 2021, by Jacaranda Books in the UK. The book received good reviews and won several awards.[1][6] This novel-in-stories, set in a fictional town in contemporary Trinidad, explores histories of racism, poverty, violence and migration with a vernacular perspective.[6] “I was writing these stories because the kind of Caribbean books I wanted to read didn’t exist”, the author has said.[1]

Mohammed second novel-in-stories, “Ever Since We Small”, was published in October 2025. Inspired by memories from her grandmother and her great aunt, this second novel-in-stories unpacks the female experience across generations in an Indo-Trinidadian family.[5][7][8]

Awards

2017 John D Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction.[1]

2018 PEN/Robert J Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.[9]

2019 Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction.[1]

2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Celeste Mohammed wins OCM Bocas Prize". www.guardian.co.tt. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  2. ^ "Talk to the Practitioner: Celeste Mohammed". The Writer. 2022-08-02. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  3. ^ Writer, Staff (2025-12-05). "Too Black to be Indian. Too Indian to be Black". Voice Online. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  4. ^ a b "Celeste Mohammed". Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  5. ^ a b c Fras­er, Fay-ola K. J. "Celeste Mohammed reclaiming her voice with powerful Caribbean stories". www.guardian.co.tt. Retrieved 2026-03-06. {{cite web}}: soft hyphen character in |last= at position 5 (help)
  6. ^ a b c d Bishop, Verdel (2022-05-09). "The writer who would be". Trinidad Express Newspapers. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  7. ^ Dabbagh, Selma (2025-12-11). "Ever Since We Small by Celeste Mohammed review – a big-hearted Caribbean tale". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-03-11.
  8. ^ Dyer, Echo (2025-12-03). "Ever Since We Small". WritersMosaic Magazine. Retrieved 2026-03-11.
  9. ^ "2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers". PEN America. 2018-02-21. Retrieved 2026-03-11.
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