Dionne Brand

Quick Facts

Full Name	Dionne Brand
Occupation	Writer
Date Of Birth	Jan 7, 1953(1953-01-07)
Age	71
Birthplace	Guayaguayare
Country	Trinidad and Tobago
Birth City	Rio Claro-Mayaro Regional Corporation
Horoscope	Capricorn

Dionne Brand Biography

Dionne Brand is one of the most popular and richest Writer who was born on January 7, 1953 in Guayaguayare, Rio Claro-Mayaro Regional Corporation, Trinidad and Tobago. Dionne Brand CM and FRSC (born on January 7, 1953) is a Canadian novelist, poet as well as an essayist and documentarian. Brand was the city’s 3rd Poet in September 2009 until November 2012. She was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2017 and has also won several awards including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry as well as the Trillium Prize for Literature, the Pat Lowther Award for Poetry as well as The Harbourfront Writers’ Award and Toronto Book Award. Toronto Book Award.

Dionne Brand made a series of documentaries in NFB’s feminist film producing unit Studio D, from 1989 until 1996. In the year that Studio D was criticized for its inability to attract diverse audiences, Rina Fraticelli, the director of the unit at that time came up with the program New Initiatives in Film (NIF). It was through this initiative that Brand joined forces along with Ginny Stikeman to make an award-winning film called Sisters in the Struggle (1991) which was which was a “look at Black women in community, labour and feminist organizing”. It made up the Women at the Well trilogy which included older, stronger, more savvy (1989) along with Long Time Comin’ (1991). Brand’s work with the producer Stikeman was also an “model for the Internship Component of NIF” The program provided production experiences at different local studios in Canada as well as in Studio D in Montreal. Brand’s film older, Stronger, Wiser (1989) that “features five black women talking about their lives in urban and rural Canada between the 1920s and 1950s”, as well as Sisters in the Struggle, were distinct in the sense the sense that they diverged from the mid-1980s surveys and focused on local issues that concern Canadian women.

Critics such as Winfried Siemerling have hailed No Language is Neutral as a “breakthrough volume” for its uninhibitedness. In 1991, however, critics such as Ronald B. Hatch sung a different tune. He claimed that the “highly provocative material” in No Language Is Neutral coupled with “the Trinidadian English” was “monotonous” and lacked “imagistic representation”. He claimed that the fault in No Language is Neutral was that it was “highly formal” and “highly rationalist” as if expecting Brand to write the opposite because of her ‘other’/ ‘exotic’ status. Brand, however, did not conform to any of these expectations as can be seen in her later work too. Her incorporation of Patois in her prose-like poems for example continued way past No Language is Neutral.

In “This Body For Itself” (1994), in Bread Out of Stone, Brand discusses the way the black female body is represented. She asserts that in male authored texts, the black female body is often portrayed as motherly or virginal. In female authored texts, the black female body is often portrayed as protector and/or resistor to rape. Brand states that it is understandable why this happens. The avoidance of portraying black female bodies as sexual is out of self-preservation, as black female bodies are often overly sexualized in their portrayal. However, Brand argues that this self-preservation is a trap, because desire and sexuality can be a great source of power, and suppressing this only further suppresses female power to own their own desire. She writes, “The most radical strategy of the female body for itself is the lesbian body confessing all the desire and fascination for itself” (p. 108).

in Rivers Have Sources, Trees Have Roots (1986), Brand and co-author Krisantha Bhaggiyadatta conducted interviews with a hundred persons from Canadian Indigenous, Black, Chinese, and South Asian communities about their views of racism and its influence in their daily lives. The authors challenged the prevalence and prevalence of discrimination, racism and resistance, asserting that there are two main themes in which racism is prevalent in their interviewees in their lives in two ways: through “the culture of racism” as well as through institutional and structural methods.

Dionne Brand Net Worth

Dionne Brand is one of the richest Writer from Trinidad and Tobago. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Dionne Brand 's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: December 11, 2023)

Dionne Brand is a native of Guayaguayare, Trinidad and Tobago. Her graduation from Naparima Girls High School, located in San Fernando, Trinidad, in 1970. She then emigrated to Canada. She was a student at Toronto’s University of Toronto and earned an BA qualification (English as well as philosophy) in

1975. She then achieved the MA (1989) in 1989 from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Brand is currently living in Toronto.

The first of her books, Fore Day Morning: Poems, was published in 1978. Since then Brand has published a variety of works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction as well editing anthologies and making documentary films for her employer, the National Film Board of Canada.

No Language is Neutral was originally published in 1990 by Coach House Press. It is a 50-page tour-de-force which tackles issues of immigration, environmentalism, slavery, lesbian love, identity, place and the female body, all from a no-holds-barred Black feminist perspective. The title of the book indicates that Brand is in conversation with writers of the Black Diaspora, namely Derek Walcott. Susan Gingell goes as far as to call him her “antithetical literary ancestor” whose views Brand fights against and rewrites in No Language is Neutral. She is calling out Walcott, who in her opinion plays to the belief that “colonization brought civilization, brought culture.” She confidently posits herself as the antidote to Walcott: he is the “Black colonial” who through literature dances with oppression instead of fighting it. In the Caribbean context, Brand’s literary forbearers had almost been exclusively male so her take in No Language is Neutral is of utmost importance and her calling out of Walcott even more revolutionary.

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

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Who is Dionne Brand Dating?

According to our records, Dionne Brand is possibily single & has not been previously engaged. As of December 1, 2023, Dionne Brand’s is not dating anyone.

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The Thames Art Gallery in Chatham called Brand’s documentary Sisters in the Struggle “radical in its amplifications of the voices of black Canadian women, who reflect on the legacy of the intersection of racism and sexism, alongside their personal battles in community, labour and feminist organizing”.

Facts & Trivia

Dionne Ranked on the list of most popular Writer. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in Trinidad and Tobago. Dionne Brand celebrates birthday on January 7 of every year.

Brand’s documentary work frequently focuses on multiculturalism and sexual pluralism in Canada. She warns against state-sponsored images of multiculturalism, stating that true diversity means people having “equal access to equal justice, equal jobs, equal education”. Having critiqued the concept of ‘nation’ as the notion of “leaving out” Black women, Brand has focused much of her work on representation for her communities.

What is Dionne Brand known for?

Her writing has won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Trillium Prize for Literature, the Pat Lowther Award for Poetry, the Harbourfront Writers’ Prize and the Toronto Book Award. Dionne Brand became prominent first as an award-winning poet, and is perhaps still best known for her poetry.

What is Dionne Brand doing now?

She is currently Professor of English at the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph where she also holds a University Research Chair.

Where is Dionne Brand from?

Guayaguayare, Trinidad and Tobago

When did Dionne Brand move to Toronto?

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Brand moved to Toronto in 1970. She began her studies at U of T, earning an undergraduate degree in English and philosophy and a master’s degree in philosophy of education from U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

What was Dionne brands childhood like?

Brand was born in Guayguayare, Trinidad on July 7, 1953. Her family was a complicated and extended one—a “pumpkin-vine family,” she told the (Montreal) Gazette. With her mother and aunt spending several years in England working when she was a child, Brand was largely raised by her grandparents.