Michelle Carla Cliff (2 November 1946 – 12 June 2016) was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included ''

Abeng An Abeng is an animal horn or musical instrument in the language of the Akan people. The word ''abeng'' is from the Twi language in modern-day Ghana, it is a commonly used word in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, and the instrument is associat ...

'' (1985), '' No Telephone to Heaven'' (1987), and ''Free Enterprise'' (2004). In addition to novels, Cliff also wrote short stories,

prose poems Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...

and works of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

. Her works explore the various complex

identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...

problems that stem from the experience of

post-colonialism Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is ...

, as well as the difficulty of establishing an authentic individual identity in the face of

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

constructs. A historical revisionist, many of Cliff's works seek to advance an alternative view of history against established mainstream narratives. She often referenced her writing as an act of defiance—a way to reclaim a voice and build a narrative in order to speak out against the unspeakable by tackling issues of sex and race. Identifying as biracial and bisexual, Cliff, who had both

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

n and American citizenship, used her voice to create a body of work filled with prose poetry, novels, and short stories. Her writings were enriched by the power, privilege and pain of her multi-locatedness to creatively reimagine Caribbean identity.

Biography

Cliff was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1946 and moved with her family to New York City three years later. Her father was Carl Cliff and her mother was Lilla Brennan. Cliff has described her family as "Jamaica white", Jamaicans of mostly European ancestry, but later began to identify as a light-skinned Black woman. Responding to a description of her in the West Indian anthology "Her True True Name" as being light-skinned enough to be functionally white, Cliff rejected the notion that a person has "a white outlook just because you look white." She moved back to Jamaica in 1956 and attended St Andrew High School for Girls, where she kept a diary and began writing, before returning to New York City in 1960.Grimes, William (18 June 2016)
"Michelle Cliff, Who Wrote of Colonialism and Racism, Dies at 69"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved 18 June 2016. She was educated at Wagner College (New York) where she graduated with a B.A. in European History and the Warburg Institute at the University of London where she did post graduate work in Renaissance studies, focusing specifically on the Italian Renaissance. She has held academic positions at several colleges including Trinity College (Connecticut), Trinity College and Emory University. From 1999, Cliff lived in Santa Cruz, California, with her partner, the American poet Adrienne Rich. The two had been partners since 1976; Rich died in 2012. Cliff died of liver failure on 12 June 2016.

Career and works

Her first published work came in the form of the book ''Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise'', which covered the many ways Cliff herself experienced racism and prejudice. Having found fellowship and community with African American and Latina feminists, Cliff's work thrived and contributed to enabling other voices to be heard. Cliff was a contributor to the 1983 Black feminism, Black feminist anthology Home Girls, ''Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology''. In 1984, Cliff published ''Abeng'', a semi autobiographical novel that explores topics of female sexual subjectivity and Jamaican identity. Next came ''The Land of Look Behind: Prose and Poetry'' (1985), which uses the Jamaican folk world, its landscape and culture to examine identity. Cliff's second novel, ''No Telephone to Heaven'', was published in 1987. At the heart of this novel, which continues the story of Clare Savage from her first novel, ''Abeng'', she explores the need to reclaim a suppressed African past. Her works were also anthologized in a collection edited by Barbara Smith and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Gloria Anzaldúa for ''Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Writing by Feminists of Color'' (1990). From 1990 on, Cliff's work is seen as having taken a more global focus, especially with her first collection of short stories, ''Bodies of Water''. In 1993 she published her third novel, ''Free Enterprise'', and in 1998 she published another collection of short stories, ''The Store of a Million Items''. Both works continue her pursuit of readdressing historical injustices. She continued to work throughout the 2000s, releasing several collections of essays and short stories including ''If I Could Write This Fire'' (2008) and ''Everything Is Now: New and Collected Short Stories'' (2009). Her final novel, ''Into The Interior'', was published in 2010. By 2015, Cliff took part in many literary projects, including translating into English the works of several writers, poets and creatives such as Argentinean poet Alfonsina Storni; Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico García Lorca and Italian poet, film director and philosopher Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Fiction

* 2010: ''Into the Interior'' (University of Minnesota Press). Novel * 2009: ''Everything is Now: New and Collected Stories'' (University of Minnesota Press). Short stories * 2004: ''Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant'' (City Lights Publishers). Novel * 1998 in literature, 1998: ''The Store of a Million Items'' (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company). Short stories * 1993 in literature, 1993: ''Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant'' (New York: Dutton). Novel * 1990 in literature, 1990: ''Bodies of Water'' (New York: Dutton). Short stories * 1987 in literature, 1987: '' No Telephone to Heaven'' (New York: Dutton). Novel (sequel to ''Abeng'') * 1984 in literature, 1984: ''

'' (New York: Penguin). Novel

Prose poetry

* 1985: ''The Land of Look Behind and Claiming'' (Firebrand Books). * 1980: ''Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise'' (Persephone Press).

Editor

* 1982: Lillian Smith (author), Lillian Smith, ''The Winner Names the Age: A Collection of Writings'' (New York: Norton).

Other

* 2008: ''If I Could Write This in Fire''. University of Minnesota Press. Non-fiction collection. * 1982: "If I Could Write This in Fire I Would Write This in Fire", in Barbara Smith (ed.), ''Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology'' (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press). * 1994
"History as Fiction, Fiction as History"
''Ploughshares'', Fall 1994; 20(2–3): 196–202. * 1990: "Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women's Artists," in Gloria Anzaldúa (ed.), ''Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color'' (San Francisco: Aunt Lute), pp. 271–290.

Feminism

In 1981, Cliff became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.

References

External links

Bio at Emory University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cliff, Michelle 1946 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American novelists Lesbian feminists American lesbian writers Jamaican feminists Jamaican women novelists Jamaican LGBT writers African-American feminists American feminists Wagner College alumni Alumni of the Warburg Institute Trinity College (Connecticut) faculty Emory University faculty Emigrants from British Jamaica to the United States American women short story writers American women novelists American LGBT novelists African-American women writers 20th-century American women writers African-American short story writers Deaths from liver failure 20th-century American short story writers African-American novelists 20th-century Jamaican novelists 21st-century Jamaican novelists Novelists from Connecticut Novelists from Georgia (U.S. state) 21st-century American women writers American women academics 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American writers