M. Nourbese Philip, as she now signs her work, is plurally significant. A Caribbean woman, she breaks new aesthetic and thematic ground through the poetry, prose, and a combination of the two that she writes for children and adults. One of the important pioneers of African-Caribbean-Canadian literature, she is a developer of literary frontiers that serve the culturally complex horizons of newly constituted societies. To fully understand Philip requires a familiarity with literature and culture in the Caribbean and Canada, women's writing, and black literature and concerns. At the same time her work reaches out to every reader sensitive to courageous writing. She blazes a path many will follow and shares moving and original insights from her experience.

Nourbese Philip was born Marlene Irma Philip in Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago, to Parkinson and Undine Philip. Many years later she adopted the name Nourbese, which is a Benin name...