About the Author

As a young girl growing up in Trinidad, Dionne Brand submitted poems to the newspapers under the pseudonym Xavier Simone, an homage to Nina Simone, whom she would listen to late at night on the radio. Brand moved to Canada when she was 17 to attend the University of Toronto, where she earned a degree in Philosophy and English, a Masters in the Philosophy of Education and pursued PhD studies in Women's History but left the program to make time for creative writing.

Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General's Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General's Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.

What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. "I'd be looking through the window and I'd think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: 'There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by," she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying "I've 'read' New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too."

In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.

In Another Place, Not Here was published in the New Face of Fiction program in 1996.

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Books by this author

What We All Long For (Vintage Canada, 2005)
What We All Long For (Knopf Canada, 2005)
A Map to the Door of No Return (Anchor Canada, September 2002)
A Map to the Door of No Return (Doubleday Canada, August 2001)
At the Full and Change of the Moon (Vintage Canada, 2000)
At the Full and Change of the Moon (Knopf Canada, 1999)
Bread Out of Stone (Vintage Canada, 1998)
In Another Place, Not Here (Vintage Canada, 1997)
In Another Place, Not Here (Knopf Canada, 1996)

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Literary Awards

• Winner of the 1997 Governor General's Award for Poetry (Land to Light On)
• Winner of the 1997 Trillium Award for Poetry (Land to Light On)
• Shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award (In Another Place, Not Here)
• Shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award (In Another Place, Not Here)

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Book Reviews and Quotes

Praise for A Map to the Door of No Return:

"Open it anywhere and start reading and it makes sense…. her true home is not Africa, the Caribbean or Canada, but poetry."
-Ottawa Citizen

"Moving and evocative…. Brand's examination of her own personal odyssey is fascinating."
-The Edmonton Journal

"Brand's is a voice both brave and beautiful."
-NOW

"Dionne Brand - exults in the power of language and deploys it to lure us from harsh reality to metaphysical heights - [her] prose, so close to poetry, [is] almost musical."
-National Post

"Brand has two gifts that are incendiary in combination: a concise and intelligent grasp of the subtleties of emotion and an apparently effortless facility with the language. The result is an extraordinary ability to capture the flicker of experience."
-The Globe and Mail

Praise for At the Full and Change of the Moon:

"…[T]he language Brand draws on is rich, elegiac, almost biblical in its rhythms. At the Full and Change of the Moon ...coupled with Brand's vision and spectacular gifts as a poet, make it one of the essential works of our times ....[A] novel that in many respects is nothing short of brilliant."
-The Globe and Mail

"Brand delivers a distinguished, visionary work, grounded in the language and legacy of her native Trinidad. Intricately structured and lyrically narrated, the novel invokes the powerful influence of hereditary forces on the far-flung descendants of Marie-Ursule…. Brand seamlessly fuses individual and collective identities in a work of poetic achievement."
-Publishers Weekly (6/9/99)

Praise for In Another Place, Not Here:

"[Dionne Brand] is one of the best practitioners of contemporary Canadian fiction that I have read in the last 10 years. In Another Place, Not Here touches the centre of Canadian experience, dealing with our racism nonvindictively, embracing the possibility of confrontation and of cure… Masterly."
-Austin Clarke, The Toronto Star

"Flashes with Brand's social acumen and lyricism…. Politically and artistically, Brand shares more with Canadian writers such as Gail Scott and Michael Ondaatje."
-Quill & Quire

"Brand's mesmerizing voice lures the reader through a plot that oscillates between past and present. Her rendering of the island's slave history is sublimely evocative… The novel reinforces Brand's status as a significant voice for the Caribbean-Canadian experience."
-Maclean's

Praise for What We All Long For:

"Dionne Brand's What We All Long For is her third and most accomplished novel…. And it is not too much to say that Brand writes Toronto in this new novel as it has never been written before. …The craft of What We All Long For solidly establishes Brand as a literary contender…. She translates our desires and experience into a language, an art that allows us to voice that which we live, but could not utter or bring to voice until she did so for us. Yes, I am crediting Brand's art with tremendous power." -The Globe and Mail

"Brand particularly lingers with her young characters, making them lovable in their beauty, loyalty, bravado, and vulnerability. Filmmaker, novelist, and poet, Brand draws on her multiple gifts in What We All Long For. …Brand's most accomplished novel yet."
-Quill & Quire

"Wanna bliss out? Read Dionne Brand writing about Toronto. The opening of What We All Long For… is so vivid, so convincing, you wish it would go on for pages… [The characters are] diverse, talented, bristling with rage, regret and guilt …This is a straight-ahead narrative, craftily conceived so that the relationships morph and the tensions build… It's some of the best writing you'll see this year."
-Susan G. Cole, NOW magazine

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Links to Extra Resources

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