Poetry. Fiction. Essays. In WHY WE WRITE: CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN CANADIAN POETS AND NOVELISTS, fifteen leading African Canadian writers interview with editor H Nigel Thomas, discussing the complexities of the writing experience and revealing their thoughts on their creative process. Identifying how their social and geographical origins have influenced their work, the interviews provide valueable insights both on individual creativity and on the politics of cultural production in a multicultural society. Contributors include Austin Clarke, George Elliot Clarke, Afua Cooper, Bernadette Dyer, Claire Harris, Lawrence Hill, Nalo Hopkinson, Pamela Mordecai, and others.

Author City: Montreal, QC CAN

H. Nigel Thomas emigrated from St. Vincent and the Grenadines forty years ago. He now lives in the Greenfield Park suburb of Montreal. He is a graduate of Concordia University, McGill University, and Universite de Montreal. Until 2006 he was professor of US literature at Universite Laval. His short stories, poems, and articles have appeared in several journals and anthologies. He is the author of seven books.