Art, Literature and Storytelling

An island that publishes

House of Nehesi Publishers describes decades of books, readings, workshops, criticism, and cultural organizing in St. Martin and across the Caribbean. Its catalogue includes poetry, fiction, history, language, and cultural studies. It is a central part of the island's literary infrastructure, and individual books remain the best sources for the subjects they address.

The St. Martin Book Fair

Founded in 2003, the St. Martin Book Fair is multilingual and family-centered. Its archive records openings on both the northern and southern sides, with programs that connect books to schools, workshops, music, theatre, and film. The University of St. Martin's announcement for the 2026 edition shows the fair as a partnership among institutions, writers, educators, and readers.

Dates and venues change, so the fair's history sits here and the next confirmed program belongs on the week page.

Ruby Bute

Ruby Bute was a St. Martin painter, poet, teacher, and broadcaster. A Department of Culture tribute describes her attention to everyday people, Carnival, string-band musicians, and mothers with children, and identifies her 1983 one-woman exhibition as a career landmark.

Her poetry collection Golden Voices of S'maatin first appeared in 1989, and a publisher's release reported a third printing in 2021. Parliament later presented a posthumous exhibition of her artwork.

Writers and painters

Lasana M. Sekou is a St. Martin poet, fiction writer, essayist, and publisher whose work engages language, salt, history, race, political freedom, and Caribbean belonging. Profiles from SX Salon and Poetry International offer introductions to his work.

Sir Roland Richardson, born in Marigot in 1944, is a painter and printmaker known for plein-air painting and traditional etching. His own biography supplies a detailed record, and independent arts coverage of a 2025 retrospective confirms key biographical and exhibition details.

Stories in a living voice

The Government of Sint Maarten heritage inventory records Anansi and Broer Nancy stories, riddles, sayings, and other oral forms on the Dutch side. A story changes with its teller, setting, and audience. A story published here stays under its teller's name, with permission and community context, and that Dutch-side record is not proof that every form is practiced across the whole island.

Film and photography

Laura Bijnsdorp's 2012 documentary Back In The Day preserves named memories of life before tourism. It shows what film does well: it keeps voices, expressions, and pauses attached to the people who shared them.

Support the work

Send your attention back to the creators. Go to publishers, artists, galleries, institutions, booksellers, and authorized events rather than copying poems or artworks. Buy a book, attend a reading, or see the work in a venue that has permission to show it.