15 Facts About Michelle Cliff

Michelle Carla Cliff was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included Abeng, No Telephone to Heaven, and Free Enterprise.

Michelle Cliff's works explore the identity problems that stem from postcolonialism, race and gender constructs.

Michelle Cliff identified as biracial and bisexual, and had both Jamaican and American citizenship.

Michelle Cliff was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1946 and moved with her family to New York City three years later.

Michelle Cliff has described her family as "Jamaica white", Jamaicans of mostly European ancestry, but later began to identify as a light-skinned Black woman.

Michelle Cliff was educated at Wagner College where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in European history, then at the Warburg Institute of the University of London where she did postgraduate work in Renaissance studies, focusing on the Italian Renaissance.

Michelle Cliff later lived in Santa Cruz, California, with her partner, the poet Adrienne Rich.

Michelle Cliff's first published work was the book Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise, which covered the ways she experienced racism and prejudice.

In 1981, Michelle Cliff became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.

Michelle Cliff was a contributor to the 1983 Black feminist anthology Home Girls.

Michelle Cliff's works were in a collection edited by Gloria Anzaldua called Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Writing by Feminists of Color.

From 1990 on, Michelle Cliff's work took a more global focus, especially with her first collection of short stories, Bodies of Water.

Michelle Cliff continued to work throughout the 2000s, releasing several collections of essays and short stories including If I Could Write This in Fire and Everything Is Now: New and Collected Short Stories.

Michelle Cliff translated into English the works of several writers, poets and creatives such as Argentinean poet Alfonsina Storni; Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca and Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Michelle Cliff held academic positions at several colleges including Trinity College and Emory University.