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George Elliott Clarke
George Elliott Clarke is a
Canadian poet and playwright. Born in Windsor Plains, Nova Scotia, he
has spent much of his career writing about the Black communities of
Nova Scotia and served for a time in the African-American Studies department
at Duke University. He earned a BA Honours degree in English from the
University of Waterloo (1984), an MA in English from Dalhousie University
(1989) and a PhD in English from Queen’s University (1993). In addition,
he has received honorary degrees from Dalhousie University (LLD), the
University of New Brunswick (LittD), the University of Alberta (LittD),
and the University of Waterloo (LittD). He is currently professor of
English at the University of Toronto. In 2001 he won the Governor General’s
Literary Award for poetry for his book Execution Poems.
Clarke’s work largely explores
and chronicles the experience and history of the Black Canadian community
of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that
Clarke often refers to as Africadia.
Clarke’s Whylah Falls
was one of the selected books in the 2002 edition of Canada Reads, where
it was championed by Nalo Hopkinson.
“[T]o be from the Maritimes
is to be, in terms of the imagination, from a different country. One
is a Nova Scotian, always, no matter where one is, just as a Jamaican,
migrated and settled in Toronto, may still feel, must still feel, Jamaican.
I may have left the Maritimes, but the Maritimes is as much a part of
me as the proverbial salt – sea salt
– in our blood.”
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