Rashidah Ismaili was part of the Black Arts Movement in New York in the 1960s.
12 Facts About Rashidah Ismaili
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Rashidah Ismaili is an arts and culture critic and taught literature by French- and English-speaking African writers in higher education institutes for more than 30 years.
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Rashidah Ismaili was born and raised in Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa.
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Rashidah Ismaili's mother was from Benin but her father was from Kano in Northern Nigeria.
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Rashidah Ismaili participated in the Black Arts Movement in New York City in the 1960s, and was a member of the Umbra collective of young black writers.
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Rashidah Ismaili worked as a professor, psychologist, counselor in various universities for over 30 years, before retiring in 2000.
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Rashidah Ismaili was associate director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program at Pratt Institute for 15 years, and a faculty member of Wilkes University's Creative Writing MA Program, and she now conducts workshops, writing seminars and lectures when not writing.
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Rashidah Ismaili is the author of collections of poetry, essays, novels, plays and short stories, and her work has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Bomb, The Black Scholar, and The Heinemann Book of African Women's Poetry.
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An executive board member of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, an NGO co-founded in 1991 by Jayne Cortez and Ama Ata Aidoo "for the purpose of establishing links between professional African women writers", Rashidah Ismaili helped plan and participated in the conference "Yari-Yari Pamberi" held in October 2004 at New York University and the Schomburg Center.
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Rashidah Ismaili contributed to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
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Rashidah Ismaili is a contributor to Encounters with James Baldwin: Celebrating 100 Years.
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Rashidah Ismaili has received recognition and awards including from PEN America, Dramatist League, Kennedy Center, Miami International Book Fair, Zimbabwe International Book Fair, the Puffin Travel Award and the Sojourner Truth Meritorious Award.