At the 10th Biennial Book Industry of Jamaica National Book Award Ceremony held recently, the University of the West Indies Press, its authors and staff received a record number of awards. Jamaican Food by Barry Higman and Archibald Monteath by Maureen Warner-Lewis shared the Best Academic Book Award with Belisario by Jackie Ranston  (The Mill Press).   Jamaican Food also received the Best Reference Book Award while Archibald Monteath and Belisario (Mill Press) shared the Best Adult Non-Fiction Award.

UWI Press authors Higman and Warner-Lewis and faculty at UWI, Mona have each written numerous books in history and cultural studies and garnered an impressive array of international book awards between them, including the Bancroft Prize for American History, the Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award from the Caribbean Studies Association, and the Elsa Goveia Award from the Association of Caribbean Historians.

Through its National Book Awards, the Book Industry Association has been recognizing publishing excellence in Jamaica for twenty years. During that time, UWI Press books have dominated the Best Academic Book Category, and in 2004 the Press was honoured with the Trailblazer Award for “overall publishing excellence, contributions to international scholarship and successful growth and risk taking in a difficult economic environment”.