"Introduction" in Fierce Departures: The Poetry of Dionne Brand
The selections in Fierce Departures, drawn from Dionne Brand’s work since 1997, delineate with searing eloquence how history marks and dislocates peoples of the African diaspora, how nations, concretely and conceptually, fail to create safe haven, and how human desire persists nevertheless. Through a widening canvas, Brand unfolds the (im)possibilities of belonging for those whom history has dispossessed. Yet she also shows how Canada, and in particular Toronto, remade by those who alight on it, is a place of contingency. Known for her linguistic intensity and lyric brilliance, Brand consoles through the beauty of her work and disturbs with its uncompromising demand for ethical witness.
Leslie Sanders is a Professor in York University’s Department of Humanities. She works in African American and Black Canadian literatures and cultures, and literatures of the African diaspora.
Other publications from this author include:
- "Celebrating Austin Clarke: The Man and the Body of His Work" in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 42 (2021)
- "Introduction" in Chronicles: Early Works of Dionne Brand (2011)
- "Four Black Film Documentary Moments" in Multiple Lenses – Voices from the Diaspora located in Canada (2007)
- Gospel Plays, Operas, and Late Dramatic Works. Volume 6. The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (2004)
- The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move, Volume 5. The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (2002)
- The Development of Black Theater in America: From Shadows to Selves (1989)