Merle Collins

Merle Collins (born 29 September 1950 in Aruba)[1] is a distinguished Grenadian poet and short story writer.

Merle Collins
Born29 September 1950  (age 70)
Aruba 
Alma mater
OccupationPoet, performing artist, novelist 
Employer
Awards

Life

Collins' parents are from Grenada, where they returned from Aruba shortly after her birth. Her primary education was in St George's, Grenada. She later studied at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, earning degrees in English and Spanish in 1972.[2] She then taught history and Spanish in Grenada for two years and subsequently in St Lucia. In 1980, she graduated from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, with a master's degree in Latin American Studies. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Ph.D. in Government.

Collins was deeply involved in the Grenadian Revolution and served as a government coordinator for research on Latin America and the Caribbean. She left Grenada for England in 1983.[3][1]

Academic work

From 1984 to 1995, Collins taught at the University of North London. She is currently a Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of Maryland,[4] where she was selected as 2018–2019 Distinguished Scholar Teacher.[5]

Her critical works include "Themes and Trends in Caribbean Writing Today" in From My Guy to Sci-Fi: Genre and Women's Writing in the Postmodern World (ed. Helen Carr, Pandora Press, 1989), and "To be Free is Very Sweet" in Slavery and Abolition (Vol. 15, issue 3, 1994, pp. 96–103).

Creative writing

Her first collection of poetry, Because the Dawn Breaks, was published by Karia Press in London in 1985, at which time Collins was a member of African Dawn, a performance group combining poetry, mime, and African music.[3]

In England, she began her first novel, Angel, which was published in 1987. Angel follows the lives of Grenadians as they struggled for independence, and is specifically about a young woman going through the political turbulence in Grenada at the time.

Her collection of short stories, Rain Darling, was produced in 1990, and a second collection of poetry, Rotten Pomerack, in 1992. Her second novel, The Colour of Forgetting, was published in 1995. A review of her 2003 poetry collection, Lady in a Boat, states: "Ranging from poems reveling in the nation language of her island to poems that capture the beauty of its flora, Collins presents her island and people going about the business of living. They attempt to come to terms with the past and construct a future emerging out of the crucible of violence. Lady in a Boat is a poignant retelling of a period in history when, for a brief moment, Caribbean ascendancy seemed possible. Merle Collins shows how the death of this moment continues to haunt the Caribbean imagination."[6] Her most recent collection of stories, The Ladies Are Upstairs, was published in 2011.

Bibliography

Poetry
  • Because the Dawn Breaks, Karia Press, 1985, ISBN 978-0-946918-09-6
  • Rotten Pomerack, Virago Press, 1992, ISBN 978-1-85381-556-0
  • Lady in a Boat, Peepal Tree Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-900715-85-0

Novels
  • Angel, Women's Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0-7043-4082-4; Seal Press, 1998, ISBN 978-1-58005-014-2
  • The Colour of Forgetting, Virago Press, 1995, ISBN 978-1-85381-892-9

Short stories
  • Rain Darling, Women's Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-7043-4258-3
  • The Ladies are Upstairs, Peepal Tree Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84523-179-8

References
  1. "Collins, Merele" Archived 2016-01-31 at the Wayback Machine, Blackwell Reference.
  2. "Dr. Merle Collins" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, Profile from the 23rd Annual Conference on West Indian Literature, University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica.
  3. Author information at Peepal Tree Press.
  4. "Dr. Merle Collins – Grenadian poet and novelist", St George's University website.
  5. "Merle Collins Selected as 2018-2019 Distinguished Scholar Teacher", Department of English, University of Maryland, 3 April 2018.
  6. June D. Bobb, "'Want[ing] a Different Song': Elegy for an Island", The Caribbean Writer.
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