By Leanne McGregor
Barbados-based publishing company Beyond Publishing Caribbean is set to represent the island and wider region at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF) in Italy, which runs from April 13 to April 16.
According to co-founder Delvin Howell, the company has been invited to participate in the fair as part of a newly formed Caribbean delegation. Howell said the contingent, called The Caribbean Collective, comprises Jamaica Book Festival Founder and Director, Latoya West-Blackwood and Trinidad and Tobago-based publisher Jeunanne Alkins.
The BCBF is widely regarded as the world’s largest international gathering dedicated to children’s publishing, illustration, rights, licensing and multimedia content, providing a major platform for global industry engagement.
Howell stressed that Caribbean representation at its 63rd edition is significant, describing the achievement as “historic.”
“This is a historic event, where for the first time the Caribbean will have such presence in this space,” he said, adding that it is “a large step towards presenting Barbadian and Caribbean publishing to the world.”
Howell said Beyond Publishing Caribbean, which was founded in 2012, will use the opportunity to showcase its catalogue of comics and illustrated novels and demonstrate the level of storytelling in Caribbean comics.
He noted his company will be showcasing several of its comic and illustrated titles at the fair, including its most recent work, “Loose Change,” a battle comic series set in a Caribbean business school promoting financial literacy and entrepreneurship; “Crossroads,” which explores social issues such as gun violence, bullying and domestic abuse; and “Offset,” a story inspired by Caribbean folklore and set in an alternate Barbados.
A coconut vendor scene from Offset, a comic series by Beyond Publishing Caribbean.
The Caribbean Collective will be exhibiting in the Comics Corner part of the BCBF, alongside “industry giants like Image Comics, Boom Studios, Kodansha, Viz Media and Scholastic”. Howell said that the company intends to use this platform to connect with other industry professionals.
“We want to put our best foot forward whenever possible at this event. We recognise that this endeavour is bigger than ourselves, as we will be representing Barbados and also the wider Caribbean region in this space.
“From the beginning, Beyond Publishing Caribbean has made the global standard of storytelling, production and artwork our bare minimum. We aimed to compete with any major title from overseas while also being true to our culture, characters and way of life,” Howell said.
Howell noted that while Beyond Publishing Caribbean has previously showcased its work as part of the Creative Caribbean delegation at CARIFESTA 2025 and collaborated on projects such as Crossroads, which was supported by the United States Embassy to address issues including bullying and domestic abuse, its participation in BCBF marks the company’s first time attending an international event of this scale in an official exhibiting capacity.
This year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair is being held at the Bologna Exhibition Centre, with its 2026 visual theme centred on “Faces, Features and Portraits”. The fair, first launched in 1963, is held annually in Bologna, Italy.
Founder and Director of the Jamaica Book Festival Latoya West-Blackwood.
Trinidad and Tobago-based publisher and founder of Everything Slight Pepper, Jeunanne Alkins.
Artwork from Loose Change, a financial literacy comic series.
Characters from the comic series Offset
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