14 Facts About Rosa Guy

Rosa Cuthbert Guy was a Trinidad-born American writer who grew up in the New York metropolitan area.

Rosa Guy's family had immigrated and she was orphaned when young.

Rosa Guy Cuthbert was born in 1922 in Diego Martin, on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

Rosa Guy left school at the age of 14 and took a job in a garment factory to support herself and her sister.

In 1941, at the age of 19, Rosa met and married Warner Guy.

In 1950, along with novelist John Oliver Killens, Rosa Guy formed a workshop that was to become the Harlem Writers Guild.

Rosa Guy belonged to On Guard for Freedom, a Black nationalist literary organization founded by Calvin Hicks on the Lower East Side of New York City.

In 1954, Rosa Guy wrote and performed in her first play, Venetian Blinds, which was successfully produced Off-Broadway at the Tropical Theater.

Two stories by Rosa Guy, "Magnify" and "Carnival", appeared in the Trinidad newspaper The Nation in 1965.

Rosa Guy is a fine writer and she continuously gives us new issues to contemplate.

Rosa Guy traveled in the Caribbean, living for a while in Haiti and Trinidad.

Rosa Guy died of cancer in 2012 at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, aged 89.

Rosa Guy's obituary was included in The Socialite who Killed a Nazi with Rosa Guy's Bare Hands: And 144 Other Fascinating People who Died this Year, a collection of New York Times obituaries published in 2012.

Rosa Guy's work received The New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation, the Coretta Scott King Award, and the American Library Association's Best Book for Young Adults Award.