Myriam J. A. Chancy,

Ph.D. in English Literature, University of Iowa, 1994. Dissertation: “In Search of Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile”

M.A. in English Literature, Dalhousie University, Canada, 1990. Thesis: “James Baldwin and the Dissolution of the Color Line”

B.A., with honors (Four-Year Advanced) in English Literature, Minor of Arts in Philosophy, University of Manitoba, Canada, 1989.

English Lit./African Diaspora with specialization in: Caribbean Women's Literature (with specialization in Anglophone Caribbean and Haitian women's literature); Caribbean Literature 20th C. to Present; African American Lit. (Harlem Renaissance to Present). Theory: Postcolonial; Transnational/Feminist Theory. Creative Writing: Fiction.

Photography; film; pottery; food culture

• Core 3 (Scripps): Caribbean Women Writers; Postcolonial Anxieties
• James Baldwin Seminar (Africana/English)
• Women Writing/Memoir (Writing Program)
• Caribbean Literature & Postcolonial Theory (English/Humanities)
• Foundations in Postcolonial Theory (Humanities Program)
• Transnational Feminist Theory (CGU)
• Academic vs Creative Non/Fiction (Writing Program)
• Lemme Cook! The Art of Food Writing (Writing Program)

Books

Village Weavers. (Novel). Tin House, April 2 2024.

• Winner of the 2025 Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature
• Winner of the 2025 Bocas Prize in Fiction
• A Time Magazine, Ms Magazine, and PureWow Best Book of April
• ShonaReads & 49th Shelf Most Anticipated Book of 2024

Spirit of Haiti. (Novel). SUNY: November 2023. 20th anniversary Reprint Edition.

• Gold Prize Winner, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, LGBTQ+ Fiction Category2024

Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters. (Essays). October 2023, University of Texas Press.

• Winner: Isis Duarte Book Prize, Latin American Studies Association, Haiti/Dominican Republic Section, 2024.
• Longlisted: Non-Fiction, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2024.

What Storm, What Thunder – A novel on post-earthquake Haiti, HarperCollins Canada/Tin House USA, Fall 2021; Paperback published by Tin House, August 23/22.

• 2022 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation
• Starred Reviews: Library Journal, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly
• Shortlisted for the Caliba Golden Poppy Award, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and longlisted for Brooklyn Public Library Prize & the OCM Bocas Prize.
• Named a "Best Book of 2021" by NPR, Kirkus, the Chicago Public Library, New York Public Library, Library Journal, Boston Globe, Amazon Books & Canada's Globe & Mail
• Named one of 10 Noteworthy Southern California Authors for 2021 by Southern California News Group (SCNG), January 30, 2021.
• People Magazine Best Book of the Week, October 18, 2021
• NPR Book of the Day, October 11, 2021
• Book of the Month Club Add-on Pick for October 2021
• Indie Next Pick for October 2021
• An Amazon Books Top 10 Pick for October 2021
• Named a “most anticipated” book of Fall 2021 by AARP, TIME, Vulture, Good Housekeeping, Library Journal, She Reads, Hey Alma, Boston.com, Buzzfeed, The Washington Post, Thrillist, LitHub, The Chicago Tribune & Dandelion Chandelier
• Harvard Bookstore, Book Passage & Odyssey Bookstore First Editions Club Selection, Fall 2021

Autochthonomies: Transnationalism, Testimony and Transmission in the African Diaspora. (Guggenheim supported project). University Press of Illinois: March 2020.

From Sugar to Revolution: Women’s Visions of Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic (Academic) Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2012.

The Loneliness of Angels (A Novel) Leeds, England: Peepal Tree Press, 2010.

The Scorpion’s Claw (A Novel) Leeds, England: Peepal Tree Press, 2005.

Spirit of Haiti. (A Novel) London, England: Mango Press, 2003.

Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.

Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

Translations

Eclairs/ Voix/ Tonnerres. French translation of What Storm, What Thunder (A Novel). Tr. Chloé Savoie-Bernard; Ed. Stéphane Martelly. Montréal, Québec: Les Martiales, Éditions du Remue-Ménage, September 2023.

LOAS. Spanish translation of Loneliness of Angels (A Novel). Tr. Mónica Del Valle. Bogóta, Colombia: LaSirén Press; August 2020.

Englenes Ensomhed. (Translation of Loneliness of Angels) Tr. Iben H. Philipsen. Copenhagen, Denmark: Rebel With A Cause Press, March 2019.

Edited Volumes

Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism [Indiana UP & Smith College], Vol. 3, no. 2, 2003; Vol. 4, no. 1 & 2, 2004; Vol. 5, no. 1, 2005 [Acquisitions, Vol. 5, no. 2, 2005]

New Creative Writing

“kenbe,” Entry in Thinking from Black: A Lexicon. Ed. Tina Campt / The Practicing Refusal Collective. Knopf/Random House: Fall 2026.

“‘Why don't you write in French or Kreyòl?’: Query and Response,” Full Stop. (Commissioned). Ed. Natália Affonso. Summer 2026.

“Dancing with the Spirits: Home to Haiti,” Mosaic Magazine. Ed. Roberto Garcia Vol. 44 (James Baldwin Centennial Issue). Fall 2025.

"Writing as an act of conjuring." Craft/Writing Column, Lit Hub. (Commissioned) April 5, 2024.

“Loko (aka Loco, aka, the Rainwater Man),” (new fiction) Room Magazine 45.2, Summer/Fall 2022.

“Departures,” Guernica Magazine, November 3, 2021.

“What Storm, What Thunder,” (excerpt from novel, WS, WT), Lit Hub, October 18, 2021.

“Myriam J. A. Chancy on Haiti’s Uncertain Future and What We Must Learn from It,” OprahDaily.com, October 14, 2021.

“9 Books About Love, Loss and Belonging Set in the Caribbean,” Electric Literature, October 4, 2021.

“Long-Distance Haitian Cooking,” www.whetstonemagazine.com/journal October 4, 2021.

“Haiti Deserves Careful Attention. An Author Recommends 4 Books to Help,” NPR: World. August 23, 2021.

Essays

(Solicited Essay) “If Women Ruled Haiti: A Speculative Future.” In Black Feminist Theories: Transnational Approaches. Eds. Janell Hobson et al. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, September 2026.

(Solicited Essay/Response to Critics) “What Storm, What Thunder: Centering Community fromthe Margins in a Polyvocal Novel.” Palimpsest. Vol 13: 1. Summer 2024.

(Solicited) “Foreword,” Cruel Destiny & The White Negress: Two Novels by Cleante DesgravesValcin. Translated by Jeanne Jegousso. Eds. Nemmers & Jegousso. New Brunswick: RutgersUP, 2024.

(Solicited Essay) – "I Might Lose All My Life": Brother, I’m Dying and (Black) Immigration Discourse in the United States. Eds. Jana Braziel & Nadège Clitandre. Bloomsbury Companion to Edwidge Danticat. Forthcoming, 2020.

(Solicited Essay) - "Phantom Limbs: Kinship, Racial Performance, and Liberation in Octavia Butler's Kindred." Literaturas de Língua Inglesa: leituras interdisciplinares. Vol. 3 Spring 2019, Río, Brazil.

"African Diasporic Autochthonomies: A Syncretic Methodology for Liberatory Indigeneities." In Post/Colonialism and the Pursuit of Freedom in the Black Atlantic Ed. Jerome Branche. Routledge: 2018.

"On the Edge of Silence: l'(in)-imaginable and Gendered Representations of the Rwandan Genocide from Photography to Raoul Peck’s Sometimes in April." In Raoul Peck: Power, Politics, and the Political Imagination. Eds. Pressley-Sanon & Saint-Just. Lanham: Lexington-Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

"Subjectivity in Motion: Caribbean Women's (Dis)Articulations of Being from Fanon/Capécia to the Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands." Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy. Spring 2015.

Photography & Film

"Ayiti Alive!" One-woman show, Claremont Graduate University Art Gallery, February 3-14, 2020. 52 original digital photographs printed on aluminum sheets and DiBond.

"Ayiti Chérie: Signs of Life 2011-2013," One-woman show, Fairfield Community Arts Center, Fairfield, OH, 32 original digital photographs printed on aluminum sheets (16x20-5x6), January 10-February 15, 2014. (10 prints sold to private collectors)

"Ayiti Chérie: Signs of Life 2011-2013," One-woman show, Oxford Community Arts Center, Oxford, OH, 27 original digital photographs printed on aluminum sheets (16x20-5x6), March-April 2014. (4 prints sold to private collectors)

"Love & Forgiveness in Collectivity: Sant Atizana, Matenwa, LaGonav, Haiti," 13-minute video short, supported by the Fetzer Institute, premiered at Fetzer Institute Global Gathering, Assisi, Italy, September 2012.

Recent Talks, Interviews & Addresses

Guest Author/Speaker, “Global Port Cities Symposium,” Tulane University, Global Humanities Center, January 22-23, 2026.

Guest Author, “Haiti: Past, Present & Futures,” Campus talk, Stanford Department of History, African & African American Studies, Center for Latin American Studies/Global Studies, & Center for the Study of the Novel. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, March 3, 2026.

Guest Author, “Black History Month: Immigrant Pioneer Women in America,” Queens Public Library, Online Event, February 21, 2026.

Keynote Speaker, ““Haiti as Global Nexus: An African Diasporic Crossroads in the Americas,” Africa on the Move International Conference, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, November 13, 2025 (via Zoom).

Guest Author, Literary Freedom Project, in conversation with Cleyvis Natera, Mott Haven Library/NYPL, Bronx, NY, July 19, 2025.

Guest Author, Lost City Books summer salon at The Line, with Rosa Hornsby Castellano, Ursula Villereal-Moura, and Rax King. Washington, D.C., July 2, 2025.

Guest Author, “One-on-One: Myriam J. A. Chancy in conversation with Denise deCaires Narain, Bocas Literary Festival, Trinidad & Tobago, May 3, 2025.

Guest Speaker, “Haiti in Time: Resistance and Survival Through Art,” Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures & Latin American Cultural Center (LACC), Pittsburgh, PA, March 20-21, 2025.

Guest Author, Annual Global Readathon, with Kiese Laymon, Daniel Black and Julianne Malveaux, Consulate General of Canada in Atlanta & Georgia State University Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora, February 25-26, 2025.

Keynote Address, “Global Connections: The Nexus of the World in Haiti,” Haiti and The World: Global Encounters of the Present, Past and Future Conference, Rice University, February 7-8, 2025.

Guest Speaker, “Philosophizing the Caribbean: Diaspora Panel,” w/ Chike Jeffers & Deryck Murray, moderated by Rawle Gibbons, Caribbean Yard Campus (via Zoom), Trinidad & Tobago, November 26, 2024.

Guest Author, “Coming of Age Amid Political Unrest” Panel w/ Joy Castro & Gina María Balibrera, Main Program, Miami Book Fair, November 23, 2024.

Guest Author, “Narratives of Resistance: Unbreakable Bonds and Revolutionary Love” Panel, w/ Edwidge Danticat & Fabienne Josaphat, Read Caribbean Program, Miami Book Fair, November 23, 2024.

Featured Author, Next Page Celebration Gala Dinner, Miami Book Fair, November 22, 2024.

Author Interview, “Trait D’Union” show with hosts Roberto Donerval and Djenane Saint Fleur, WSRF Radio, Miami, November 21, 2024.

Guest Author, “The Power of Character in Historical Fiction,” w/ Christina Henríquez, Texas Book Festival, November 17, 2024.

Guest Speaker, “Preserving Haiti: Inscribing Home, History, and Hope in New Fiction," Henry Peyre Institute Lecture Series, Ph. D. Program in French at CUNY, Manhattan, November 1, 2024.

• Fiction Winner. OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, April 6, 2025.
• Haitian Diaspora Award, 9th Annual Haiti International Film Festival, Hollywood, CA, August 17, 2004.
• One Maryland One Book Selection 2024, "Restorative Futures," for WS, WT, Maryland Humanities https://www.mdhumanities.org/programs/one-maryland-one-book/
• Winner. Isis Duarte Book Prize, LASA, Haiti/Dominican Republic Section, Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters, Spring 2024.
• Longlisted. OCM Bocas Prize 2024, Harvesting Haiti: Reflections on Unnatural Disasters, Trinidad & Tobago
• Gold Winner. 2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, LBGTQ+ Fiction Category, Spirit of Haiti: A Novel
• Finalist. Prix des Libraires/Fiction/Hors-Québec 2024, Éclairs/ Voix/ Tonnerres - French Translation of WS, WT, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2023.
• Longlisted. Mid-Career Fiction Writer, Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize, New Literary Project/UC, Berkeley English Department, Fall 2022.
• Winner. American Book Award, What Storm, What Thunder, Before Columbus Foundation 2022.
• Shortlisted. Brooklyn Book Award, What Storm, What Thunder, November 2022.
• Shortlisted. Aspen Words Literary Prize, What Storm, What Thunder, April 2022.
• Longlisted. Bocas Literary Award, Fiction, What Storm, What Thunder, Spring 2022.
• Shortlisted. Caliba Golden Poppy Award, Fiction, What Storm, What Thunder, Fall 2021.
• Awarded. John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Literary Criticism, April 2014.
• Winner. Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award 2010, Best Book of Fiction, for The Loneliness of Angels (Peepal Tree Press, 2010), Government of Guyana/University of Guyana Prize Trustees.
• Shortlisted. 1st Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature, for The Loneliness of Angels, Trinidad/Tobago, March 2011.
• Shortlisted. Commonwealth Prize, Best First Book Category (Spirit of Haiti), Canada/Caribbean Region, 2004.
• Camargo Foundation Fellowship, Cassis, France, Fall 2001.
• Martin Luther King, Jr., César Chàvez, Rosa Parks, Visiting Professorship, University of Michigan, December 6, 2000.
• Winner. Outstanding Academic Book Award (OAB), 1997-1998, for Searching For Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (Temple UP, 1997), from Choice, February 1999, American Library Association.
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, Government of Canada, 1990-1994.