Decolonize Black History Month

Day 26: Elizabeth Nunez

Acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Nunez was born in Trinidad in 1944. She immigrated to the United States in 1963 to attend Marian College of Fond du Lac (now Marian University) where she received a bachelor’s degree in English. Nunez would later earn both a master’s and a doctorate from New York University. In 1972 she began working at the newly founded Medgar Evers College, and was able to be vital in developing the writing curriculum there.

In addition to teaching, Nunez has written several novels such as Anna In Between (2010) and When Rocks Dance (1992). Nunez writes about human relationships and clashes of cultures, classes, genders, etc. She has won many awards for her novels. For example, Beyond the Limbo Silence (1998) won an Independent Publishers Book Award and Bruised Hibiscus (2000) won the American Book Award. Not limited to fiction, Nunez has also published literary criticism and was co-editor of Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Woman Writers at Home and Abroad (2005) and Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in the 90s (1999).

Nunez works to empower other writers. She was co-founder of the National Black Writers Conference, which is now in its 13th year. She worked as Executive Producer on the 2004 tv series Black Writers in America and is served on the PEN American Open Book Committee.

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