Ramabai Espinet

Dr. Ramabai Espinet is an academic, a writer, and a critic. A graduate of York University, (B.A. Hons. English, M.A. English), she completed her Ph.D. (1993) at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Her thesis examined the place of Euro-Creole women writers, with particular reference to the work of Jean Rhys and Phyllis Shand Allfrey. She teaches in the Caribbean Studies Program (Post-Colonial Literature and Women’s Studies) at New College, University of Toronto. Dr. Espinet retired recently from her post as Professor of English, Seneca College, Toronto. She is also a Fellow of CERLAC (Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean) at York University. Her published creative works include the novel, The Swinging Bridge (2003), a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2003, a text of the Robert Adams lecture series (Canada), long-listed for the IMPAC literary prize in 2005 and published in Paris by Editions du Rocher (Le Pont Suspendu) in 2007. In 2008, Ramabai Espinet received the inaugural Nicolás Guillén Prize for Philosophical Literature from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Her publications include the collection of poetry Nuclear Seasons (1991), the performance piece Indian Robber -Talk, and the children’s books The Princess of Spadina (1992) and Ninja’s Carnival (1993). Espinet’s short fiction and poetry are published in anthologies such as Trinidad Noir, Blue Latitudes, Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam, Beyond Sangre Grande, Another Way to Dance and Wheel and Come Again, and also in journals such as Small Axe and the Massachusetts Review. She edited Creation Fire (1990), an anthology of 121 Caribbean women poets in several languages. Her scholarly essays are published widely; she also writes in a popular medium on subjects of current interest. Her field of academic research and writing is Post-Colonial Literature. A documentary on Ramabai Espinet’s work, Coming Home (2005) has been made by Leda Serene Productions in Toronto.