Michelle Cliff

Michelle Cliff (born 2 November 1946) is a Jamaican-American poet and novelist] 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.

Life
Cliff is a bisexual who 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.

Fiction

 * 1998: The Store of a Million Items (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company). Short stories
 * 1993: Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant (New York: Dutton). Novel
 * 1990: Bodies of Water (New York: Dutton). Short stories
 * 1987: No Telephone to Heaven (New York: Dutton). Novel (sequel to Abeng)
 * 1985: Abeng (New York: Penguin). Novel

Prose poetry

 * The Land of Look Behind and Claiming.
 * 1980:Identity They Taught Me to Despise.

Non-fiction

 * 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 Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute) pp. 271-290.

Edited

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