Michelle Cliff
Encyclopedia
Michelle Cliff is a Jamaica
n-American
author
whose notable works include No Telephone to Heaven
, Abeng
and Free Enterprise
.
Cliff also has written short stories, prose poems and works of literary criticism
. 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. Cliff is a bisexual
who grew up in Jamaica.
Cliff was born in Kingston
, Jamaica, in 1946 and moved with her family to New York City three years later. 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
.
Cliff was a contributor to the Black feminist
anthology Home Girls
.
As of 1999, Cliff was living in Santa Cruz, California
, with her partner, poet Adrienne Rich
. The two have been partnered since 1976.
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
whose notable works include No Telephone to Heaven
No Telephone to Heaven
No Telephone to Heaven, the sequel to Abeng, is the second novel published by Jamaican-American author Michelle Cliff. The novel continues the story of Clare Savage, Cliff’s semi-autobiographical character from Abeng, through a set of flashbacks that recount Clare’s adolescence and young adulthood...
, Abeng
Abeng
Abeng is a novel related to Maroons published in 1984 by Michelle Cliff. It is a quasi-autobiographical novel about a mixed-race Jamaican girl named Clare Savage growing up in the 1950s. It explores the historical repression resulting from British imperialism in Jamaica...
and Free Enterprise
Free enterprise
-Transport:* Free Enterprise I, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1962 and 1980.* Free Enterprise II, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1965 and 1982....
.
Cliff also has written short stories, prose poems and works of literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
. Her works explore the various, complex identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
problems that stem from post-colonialism, as well as the difficulty of establishing an authentic, individual identity despite race and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
constructs. Cliff is a bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
who grew up in Jamaica.
Cliff was born in Kingston
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
, Jamaica, in 1946 and moved with her family to New York City three years later. She was educated at Wagner College
Wagner College
Wagner College is a private, co-educational, national liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 2,400 total students located atop Grymes Hill in New York City's borough of Staten Island...
and the Warburg Institute
Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...
at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. She has held academic positions at several colleges including Trinity College
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Trinity College is a private, liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut after Yale University. The college enrolls 2,300 students and has been coeducational since 1969. Trinity offers 38 majors and 26 minors, and has...
and Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
.
Cliff was a contributor to the Black feminist
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
anthology Home Girls
Home Girls
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology is a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist writing, edited by Barbara Smith. The anthology was first published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and was reissued by Rutgers University Press in 2000 ....
.
As of 1999, Cliff was living in Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
, with her partner, poet Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
. The two have been partnered since 1976.
Fiction
- 19981998 in literatureThe year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 5 - Tennessee Williams' 1938 play, Not About Nightingales, receives its stage première....
: The Store of a Million Items (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company). Short stories - 19931993 in literatureThe year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
: Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant (New York: Dutton). Novel - 19901990 in literatureThe year 1990 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*J. K. Rowling gets the idea for Harry Potter while on a train ride from Manchester to London. She says "I was staring out the window, and the idea for Harry just came. He appeared in my mind's eye, very fully formed...
: Bodies of Water (New York: Dutton). Short stories - 19871987 in literatureThe year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...
: No Telephone to HeavenNo Telephone to HeavenNo Telephone to Heaven, the sequel to Abeng, is the second novel published by Jamaican-American author Michelle Cliff. The novel continues the story of Clare Savage, Cliff’s semi-autobiographical character from Abeng, through a set of flashbacks that recount Clare’s adolescence and young adulthood...
(New York: Dutton). Novel (sequel to Abeng) - 19851985 in literatureThe year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...
: AbengAbengAbeng is a novel related to Maroons published in 1984 by Michelle Cliff. It is a quasi-autobiographical novel about a mixed-race Jamaican girl named Clare Savage growing up in the 1950s. It explores the historical repression resulting from British imperialism in Jamaica...
(New York: Penguin). Novel
Prose poetry
- The Land of Look Behind and Claiming.
- 1980:Identity They Taught Me to Despise.
Editor
- 1982: Lillian SmithLillian SmithLillian Smith may refer to:*Lillian Smith *Lillian Smith...
, The Winner Names the Age: A Collection of Writings (New York: Norton).
Other
- 1982: "If I Could Write This in Fire I Would Write This in Fire", in Barbara SmithBarbara SmithBarbara Smith in Cleveland is an American, lesbian feminist who has played a significant role in building and sustaining Black Feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s she has been active as an innovative critic, teacher, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and publisher of Black...
, ed., Home GirlsHome GirlsHome Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology is a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist writing, edited by Barbara Smith. The anthology was first published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and was reissued by Rutgers University Press in 2000 ....
: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color PressKitchen Table: Women of Color PressKitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press started in 1980 by author Barbara Smith at the suggestion of her friend, poet Audre Lorde.-Beginnings:...
). - 1994: "History as Fiction, Fiction as History", PloughsharesPloughsharesPloughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
Fall, 1994; 20(2-3): 196-202. - 1990: "Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women's Artists," in Gloria Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute) pp. 271-290.
For further reading
- Cartelli, Thomas (1995) "After the Tempest: Shakespeare, Postcoloniality, and Michelle Cliff's New, New World Miranda," Contemporary Literature 36(1): 82-102.
- Edmondson, Belinda (1993) "Race, Writing, and the Politics of (Re)Writing History: An Analysis of the Novels of Michelle Cliff," CallalooThe Callaloo JournalCallaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially...
16(1): 180-191. - Lima, Maria Helena (1993) "Revolutionary Developments: Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven and Merle Collins's Angel," Ariel 24(1): 35-56.
- Lionnet, Francoise (1992) "Of Mangoes and Maroons: Language, History, and the Multicultural Subject of Michelle Cliff's Abeng," in Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, eds. De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 321-345.
- Raiskin, Judith (1994) "Inverts and Hybrids: Lesbian Rewritings of Sexual and Racial Identities," in Laura Doan, ed. The Lesbian Postmodern, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 156-172.
- Raiskin, Judith (1993) "The Art of History: An Interview with Michelle Cliff," Kenyon Review 15(1): 57-71.
- Schwartz, Meryl F. (1993) "An Interview with Michelle Cliff," Contemporary Literature 34(4): 595-619.