1. Shani Mootoo is a Trinidadian-Canadian writer, visual artist and video maker.
14 Facts About Shani Mootoo
1. 2.
Shani Mootoo was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidadian parents.
3.
Shani Mootoo grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
4.
At an early age Mootoo showed a talent for drawing, painting, and writing, and expressed interest in becoming an artist at the age of 10.
5.
Shani Mootoo's father, Ramesh Mootoo, was a medical family doctor and Trinidadian politician.
6.
Shani Mootoo has said that her parents worried for what those themes might mean for her future, which is why she put her words away and chose to paint instead.
7.
Shani Mootoo earned a Fine Arts BFA Degree at the University of Western Ontario in 1980 and an MA in English and Theatre from the University of Guelph, 2010.
8.
Shani Mootoo is teaching the Creative Writing Program at the University of Toronto.
9.
Shani Mootoo reflected on her film and video work in the 1990s in the commissioned article "Streams Coming Together: 1990s video in Vancouver and beyond".
10.
In 2002, Shani Mootoo followed her first novel with a collection of poetry, The Predicament of Or.
11.
Shani Mootoo has said that the story is about a father trying to help his daughter from leading the same kind of closeted life that he has led.
12.
Shani Mootoo discusses the importance of food and entertaining people in Trinidadian culture, as well as in her life and her other work.
13.
Shani Mootoo's novels are found on course lists in the Departments of English, Liberal Arts, Women's Studies, and Cultural Studies at universities in the Caribbean, Canada, the United States, England, Europe, India, and Australia.
14.
Shani Mootoo has served as writer in residence at the University of Alberta, the University of Guelph and the University of the West Indies, and as a visiting scholar at Mills College in California, US.