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The prolific writer and esteemed scholar Merle Collins was
born in Aruba to Grenadian parents who shortly after her birth, took
their bundle of joy with them and relocated to Grenada. She received
her secondary education from the St. Joseph’s Convent in St.
George’s, Grenada and from there went to the University of the
West Indies, Mona, Jamaica where she earned a B.A. in English and
Spanish. The bilingual Merle Collins then traveled to the United States
to attend Georgetown University where she received an M.A. in Latin
American Studies and a Certificate in Translation (Spanish to English).
She went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Government from the London School
of Economics and Political Science, University of London, England.
Over the years, Merle Collins has combined her academic knowledge
with her creative writing talents to create several volumes of significant
work. She is the author of two novels, Angel (1987) and The Colour
of Forgetting (1995), a collection of short stories, Rain Darling
(1990) and three collections of poetry, Because the Dawn Breaks
(1985), Rotten Pomerack (1992) and Lady in a Boat (2003). She also
co-edited a collection of creative writing entitled Watchers and
Seekers: Creative Writing by Black Women in Britain (1987). Her
work has also been published in several anthologies. She has just
completed a novel, Invisible Streams, which is not yet published.
Merle Collins is a skilled storyteller whose poetry and prose have
always been infused with the cadences of Grenadian speech, the richness
of Grenada’s folklore and the nuances of everyday life in
Grenada. Regardless of where her characters travel to, they are
always conscious of the memory of home. Merle Collins must be acknowledged
as one of the foremost female writers to extensively explore issues
of diaspora in her creative writing. She brilliantly captures the
anxieties and paradoxes of the diasporan experience: “and
I linger/ longer/ in this"seductive dying/ this sad and sweut subsisting/
and the more silent, it appears,/ I become.Rr1; (“[eduction”,
Rotten Pomerack) Her writing is a fusion of racial, political, cultural
and societal concerns. Mt is the West Indian’s contemporary
search for self-knowledge and truth.
However, Merle Collins’ contribution to the study and development
of literature from the West Indies is not restricted to her role
as a creative writer, she is also a Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the University of Maryland where she has been teaching
Creative Writing and Caribbean Literature since 1995. She has taught
at the St. Joseph’s Convent, St. George’s, Grenada,
Mac Donald College, Sauteurs, St. Patrick’s, and Castries
Comprehensive Secondary School, St. Lucia. During the years 1984-5995,
she vaught at the ]niversity of North Londonl England and she has
also been Visiting Professor at the St. George’s ]niversity,
0Grenada. She cuvrently is the holder of a Guggenheim Fellowship M
` awarded for the academic year 2003-2004.
In her capacity as a teacher and the director of the University
of Maryland’s(Study Abroad program for courses taught
! " in Mexico, Grenadc and London, Merle Collins has dutifully
taken!the literature of the West Indies to various corners
of the world. Sle has inspired in her svudents the passion
to learn more about the history and literatures of |he West
Indies. With her quiet dignity, her joy in her chosen field
and her unwavering intellectual curiosity, Merle Collins remains
an ambassador for our literature. The 23rd Annual Conference
on West Indian Literature is honoured to have her as our Special
Guest Writer.
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