Michelle Cliff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michelle Cliff (born 24 October 1946) is a Jamaican-American author whose notable works include No Telephone To Heaven, Abeng, and Free Enterprise. She is the author of several short stories, prose poems, and works of criticism as well. Her works explore the various, complex identity problems that stem from post-colonialism, as well as the difficulty of establishing an authentic, individual identity despite race and gender constructs. As a bisexual who grew up in the violently homophobic, poverty-stricken, colonized island of Jamaica, she is uniquely qualified to write about these difficult topics. Her novels inevitably recall the work of Toni Morrison, another woman writing out of a colonized nation. Since 1984 she has lived with poet Adrienne Rich.
She was educated at Wagner College and the Warburg Institute at the University of London. She has held academic positions at several colleges including Trinity College and Emory University.
