Afua Cooper

Afua Cooper was born in 1957 in Whithorn, Westmoreland, Jamaica. One of nine children, she moved to Kingston at the age of eight where she began to learn about Black Power in the late 1960’s. The political violence in Jamaica led Cooper to move to Canada in 1980. She attended the University of Toronto, where she obtained a B.A. in African Studies and Women’s Studies in 1986, an MA in Black Canadian History in 1991, and her PhD in Black Canadian History in 2000. She has taught sociology at Ryerson University and York University, and has taught history at the University of Toronto. She currently works in the Women’s Studies Department at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. She also has worked as a historian/consultant for Parks Canada. She has two daughters.

In addition to working as an academic and a noted scholar of Black Canadian history, Cooper has worked as a performing artist. She began performing and publishing her poetry inn Toronto in 1983 and has released spoken word CD's. She has worked with various Dub bands and has toured with the Dub Trinity Band. She is a founding member of the Dub Poets Collective.

Her poetry reflects pan-African awareness, offers social commentary and radical feminism, and is often political in nature. In addition to her collections of poetry, her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. In both her poetry and academic work, she commemorates black Canadian history through telling stories which are not widely known. She is a member of Canadian Historical Association, holds a seat on the National Advisory Board on Black History, and is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada.

Bibliography
Breaking Chains (1983)
Red Caterpillar on College Street (1989)
Memories Have Tongue (1992)
We’re Rooted here and They Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History (1994)
Utterances and Incantations; Women, Poetry, and Dub (1999)
The Underground Railroad, Next Stop: Toronto (2002)
Cooper Woman (2006)
The Hanging of Angélique, The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal (2006)
The Young Phillis Wheatley (2009)
The Young Henry Bibb (2009)

Awards
Joseph Brant Award for History - for We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History (1994)
Casa de Las Americas Poetry Award Finalist - for Memories Have Tongue (1992)