Ramabai Espinet Biography and latest books by Ramabai Espinet

Ramabai Espinet is an Indo-Caribbean-Canadian author known for her timeless, caustic, poetic writing. She talks about the subject of Diaspora concentrating on the struggles associated in the lives of Indo-Caribbean women.

The author was born in 1948 in San Fernando on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. In 1960\'s Ramabai\'s family moved to Canada. From then on her life has been divided between Canada and the Caribbean. Being a writer was a dream come true for her since this is what she wanted since she was 12.

Ramabai Espinet married another writer. Together they spent some time at a hippy commune on Vancouver Island. Espinet thought that the simplicity of such a life would give her the freedom to write more. They also searched for this independence to write when they shifted back to Trinidad. Here she gave birth to her first child, a son. After she divorced Ramabai, who calls herself a feminist began taking care of her children and balancing this with writing. Ramabai\'s daughter also is a writer.

Espinet attended York University in Toronto. Although she never returned to her native island to live full time, she had lived there twice for long periods of time. The first was a sojourn at home with her ex-husband. The second time was to complete her doctoral dissertation for which she gained a PhD in English from the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad.

Espinet was first known as a poet. Her book review, Nuclear Seasons, was popular. She was also recognized as a children\'s book author after The Princess of Spadina and Ninja\'s Carnival in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Ramabai Espinet is a woman who writes with the clarity and wisdom of someone who has lived her stories. Her first novel, The Swinging Bridge, was shortlisted for the Regional Commonwealth Writers Prize. The acclaimed novel travels from nineteenth-century India to the fields of Trinidad and then to Canada.

She currently teaches English and Caribbean Studies at York University and Seneca College. "I adore teaching-at every level," she once said. Ramabai Espinet is politically active in women\'s and social movements in both Canada and the Caribbean.