Dionne Brand is one of Canada’s most acclaimed poets, celebrated for her experimental works that challenge assumptions about gender identity and race. She has authored numerous books, contributed to anthologies, and created several documentary films for the National Film Board of Canada. Brand has held various academic positions, teaching literature, creative writing, and women’s studies across Canadian and U.S. universities. As a Governor General’s Award winner, Griffin Poetry Prize recipient, and former Poet Laureate of Toronto, Dionne Brand has left an indelible mark on Canadian literature and activism. Learn more about her career and accolades in this itoronto.
Achievements and Literary Awards
After graduating from Naparima Girls’ High School in Trinidad, Brand moved to Toronto, where she earned a BA in English and Philosophy and an MEd from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Her debut collection, Fore Day Morning: Poems, was published in 1978.
Brand is best known for her poetry, which includes several critically acclaimed volumes. For instance, Land to Light On (1997) won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the Governor General’s Literary Award. Thirsty (2002) received the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, while Ossuaries (2010) was honoured with the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Brand’s poetry is marked by formal and linguistic experimentation, delivering candid and passionate narratives of the immigrant experience in Canada. Her celebrated collection No Language Is Neutral (1990), which sold over 6,000 copies, explores her “escape” from Trinidad to Canada, where language itself can be oppressive and personal histories are overshadowed by heteronormative and patriarchal beliefs. Much of her work defies attempts to marginalize identities—whether personal or national.
In addition to contributing to dozens of journals, Brand has edited two anthologies: The Journey Prize Stories: The Best of Canada’s New Stories (2007) and The Unpublished City (2017). She has also scripted films for the National Film Board, such as Older, Stronger, Wiser (1989) and Sisters in Struggle (1991). Brand has taught literature and creative writing in Ontario and British Columbia and has been a visiting professor at St. Lawrence University in New York. She currently holds a Canada Research Chair in English and Creative Writing at the University of Guelph.
Dionne Brand as a Human Rights Advocate
Brand is deeply committed to social activism, critiquing economic and political power structures while combating racism, sexism, and discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Many of her written works reflect her politics. She has chaired the Women’s Issues Committee of the Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, served on the board of Shirley Samaroo House (a shelter for immigrant women in Toronto), and worked as an advisor to Toronto’s Immigrant Women’s Centre. Additionally, she co-founded Our Lives, Canada’s first publication dedicated to Black women.
Notable Works, Recognition, and Awards
Brand’s fiction includes the short story collection Sans Souci and Other Stories (1989) and novels like In Another Place, Not Here (1996), At the Full and Change of the Moon (1999), What We All Long For (2005), and Love Enough (2014). Much like her poetry, her fiction is lyrical, rhetorically innovative, and richly evocative. Her debut novel, In Another Place, Not Here, was listed among The New York Times Notable Books of 1998. The novel explores the lives of two Caribbean women—one yearning to leave the islands for a freer life in the city, and the other returning to the islands from Toronto to spark political change. Their mutual longing for “another place, not here” temporarily unites them as lovers.
Her novel What We All Long For won the Toronto Book Award for its vivid and lyrical exploration of multiculturalism and belonging in the city.
As one of Canada’s most celebrated poets, Brand became Toronto’s Poet Laureate in 2009. She has received honorary doctorates from Thorneloe University (2015), the University of Windsor (2017), and the University of Toronto (2018). In 2017, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Soon after, McClelland & Stewart named her to the newly created role of Poetry Editor. In a press release, Brand expressed deep gratitude for the opportunity.
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