Myriam J. A. Chancy (1970-), is a Haitian-Canadian writer born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and subsequently raised there and in Canada.  After obtaining her BA in English/Philosophy (4-YR ADV, with Honors), from the University of Manitoba (1989) and her MA in English Literature from Dalhousie University (1990), she completed her Ph. D. in English at the University of Iowa (1994).  In 1997, she was awarded early tenure on the basis of two influential books of literary criticism published in the same calendar year, Framing Silence : Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (Rutgers UP, 1997) and Searching for Safe Spaces : Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (Temple UP, 1997). As the first book-length study of its kind in English, Framing Silence was instrumental in inaugurating Haitian women’s studies as a contemporary field of specialization. In 1998, Searching for Safe Spaces, one of the first in the field of Caribbean Studies to argue for exile as a distinct feature of (Anglophone) Afro-Caribbean women’s literature (with a cross-over essay focusing on Marie Chauvet’s novel Amour, Colère, Folie), was awarded an Outstanding Academic Book Award by Choice, the journal of the American Library Association.  In 2004, her work as the Editor-in-Chief (2002-2004) of the Ford funded academic/arts journal, Meridians : feminism, race, transnationalism was recognized with the Phoenix Award for Editorial Achievement by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). Her third academic book, From Sugar to Revolution: Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, closes a trilogy on Caribbean women’s literature and is forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier UP (Waterloo, Canada, 2012).

Also a creative writer, Myriam Chancy has been publishing fiction, poetry and essays since 1989 but grew more interested in the novel form as a forum for the expression of contemporary realities in the mid-1990s. As a novelist, she has focused to date on themes of history, class, gender, spirituality /mysticism and sexuality in the context of Haitian culture both in Haiti and its diasporas.  She is explicitly interested in re-working the novel form as a means to express complex subject identities specific to Haiti though future work will address non-Caribbean topics.  Working in the genre of literary fiction, she has garnered a shortlisting for Best First Book, Canada/Caribbean region category, of the Commonwealth Prize in 2004 for her first novel, Spirit of Haiti (London: Mango Publications, 2003), published a second novel, The Scorpion’s Claw (Peepal Tree Press 2005) to critical praise, and a third The Loneliness of Angels (Peepal Tree Press 2010), longlisted for the 2011 OCM Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature and shortlisted in its fiction category, was awarded the inaugural Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award for Best Fiction 2010 by the trustees of the Guyana Prize, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana, on Sept. 1, 2011 [Caribbean Award Jury: Stewart Brown, Funso Aiyejina, and Rawle Gibbons].  All three of her novels are currently taught at universities and colleges in the US, Canada and the Caribbean.

She is currently at work on a book length academic work entitled, Floating Islands: Racial Identity Formation in a Transnational Age, as well as a novel focusing on repressed Haiti-Louisiana ties, entitled The Escape Artist.

Dr. Chancy is Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati where she teaches courses in African Diaspora Studies, Caribbean Lit, Postcolonial Literature & Theory, Feminist Theory & Women’s Studies, and Creative Writing (Fiction); she previously held tenure-track positions at Vanderbilt University (Assistant), Arizona State University (Associate), Louisiana State University (Full), and visiting professorships at Smith College and the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She sits on the editorial advisory board of PMLA, the journal of the Modern Language Association, the editorial board of the Journal of Haitian Studies (UC, Santa Barbara), the advisory board of Voices For Our America (VOA) housed at Vanderbilt University, and the Advisory Council in the Humanities of the Fetzer Institute.