SOURCE: Brand, Dionne, and Beverley Daurio. “Writing It: Dionne Brand.” In The Power to Bend Spoons: Interviews with Canadian Novelists, edited by Beverley Daurio, pp. 31-41. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 1998.

In the following interview, Brand discusses relationship between her politics and her writing.

Dionne Brand is the author of several books of poetry, including Chronicles of the Hostile Sun and Winter Epigrams and Epigrams to Ernesto Cardenal in Defense of Claudia, as well as a collection of short fiction, Sans Souci and Other Stories; she is also the author of a book of essays, Bread Out of Stone (1994). A community activist, scholar, and writer, she has also worked with Studio D of the National Film Board as a writer and director. Her long poem, No Language Is Neutral (1990), was nominated for the Governor General's award. Her novel, In Another Place, Not Here (1996), was published by Knopf Canada.

[Daurio...