Bio
Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 24 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada. Mootoo’s visual art and video work have been exhibited internationally, including at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Mootoo uses her art as a way to deal with the trauma of abuse in her childhood. Mootoo’s first literary publication, Out on Main Street, a collection of short stories, was solicited by the Vancouver-based feminist publishing house Press Gang Publishers in 1993 and was the beginning of her literary career. Her first full-length novel, Cereus Blooms at Night was published by Press Gang in 1996. The novel explores trauma, madness and redemption, the legacies of sexual abuse, and the boundaries between heterosexual and homosexual desire.