Creative Writers Biographies

“Comparative Postcolonialities” Conference
Biographies of Creative Writers

Nuruddin Farah, winner of the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, has also been awarded the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, the prize for the best novel in Zimbabwe, and the St. Malo Literature Festival’s prize for the French Edition of Gifts. The Somali novelist is best known for his critically acclaimed novels Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardines (1981), Close Sesame (1983), Maps (1986), Gifts (1993), and Secrets (1998). Schooled in both literature and philosophy and fluent in five languages, Farah has taught at universities in Africa, Europe, and North America. He has recently published another novel entitled Links (2004).

Boubacar Boris Diop, one of the most important novelists and screenwriters in Senegal, is the author of six novels, including Tambours de la mémoire (Drums of Memory) and Le Cavalier et son ombre (The Knight and his Shadow). He was awarded the 1990 Grand Prize for Literature in Senegal as well as the 1998 Prix Tropiques in France. His essays have appeared in Le Quotidien (Dakar), Le Monde Diplomatique and Le Courrier International (Paris), and Internazionale (Rome). In addition to serving as editor of Le Matin, Senegal's only independent daily newspaper, he has also authored several film scenarios and works regularly with noted filmmakers such Ben Diogaye Bèye (Un Amour d’Enfant) and Mansour Sora Wade (Ndeysaan: The Price of Forgiveness). His latest novel, Doomi Golo (The Monkey's Children, 2003) was written in Wolof, and the English translation of his 2000 novel on the Rwandan genocide, Murambi: The Book of Bones, will be published this fall by Indiana University Press.

Jean Said Makdisi is best known for her critically acclaimed work of nonfiction, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (1990), which chronicles the downfall of the city following the onslaught of civil war and Israeli attack. More recently, Makdisi has published another compelling memoir, Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman's Memoir (2005), which spans the lives of three generations of Arab women. She currently teaches English and Humanities at Beirut University College.

Medbh McGuckian is a leading Irish poet whose work includes The Flower Master (1982), Venus and the Rain (1984), On Ballycastle Beach (1988), Marconi's Cottage (1991), Captain Lavender (1994), Drawing Ballerinas (2001), and The Face of the Earth (2002). She has received numerous distinguished awards, including The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, The Ireland Arts Council Award, The Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, The Cheltenham Prize and, more recently, the Forward Poetry Prize for the Best Single Poem, “She is in the Past, She has this Grace.” She has also worked as a teacher and an editor, and is a former Writer in Residence at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her latest collection of poetry, The Book of the Angel, was published in 2004.

Jean Binta Breeze, recognized as the first woman to write and perform dub poetry, has performed her work all over the world, touring in the Caribbean, North America, Europe, South East Asia, and Africa. She is the author of four poetry collections, including the Caribbean classic Riddym Ravings and Other Poems (1988), Spring Cleaning (1992), and The Arrival of Brighteye and Other Poems (2000). She has also released sound recordings of her work, directed and written scripts for theatre, television, and film, and is currently joint-editor of Critical Quarterly in London. She was recently awarded the NESTA Fellowship and is working on her first novel.

Luiza Franco Moreira is an accomplished scholar and poet whose recent publications include a book of poetry entitled O exagero do sol (Excess of the Sun, 2001), an anthology of the work of Brazilian poet Cassiano Ricardo called Melhores Poemas de Cassiano Ricardo (2003), and a study of Ricardo’s work entitled Meninos, poetas e heróis: Aspectos de Cassiano Ricardo do Modernismo ao Estado Novo (Children, Poets, and Heroes, 2001). Moreira has received the Robert Remsen Laidlaw '04 Preceptorship in the Humanities (Princeton University 1998-2001) and the Advanced Research Grant from the Social Sciences Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies (Summer 1996). Moreira is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, specializing in Brazilian Literature, at Binghamton University in New York.

Fione Cheong is the author of two novels set in her native Singapore, Shadow Theatre (2002) and The Scent of the Gods (1991). Her shorter works are anthologized in Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Literature (1993) and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing (2000). She is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh and is working on several essays and a third novel, tentatively entitled Chinese and set in Pittsburgh, Ireland and Indonesia.