Mahadai Das

Mahadai Das was a Guyanese poet. She was born in Eccles, East Bank Demerara, Guyana, in 1954. She wrote poetry from her early school days at Bishop's High School, Georgetown. She did her first degree at the University of Guyana and received her B.A. in philosophy at Columbia University, New York,[1] and then began a doctoral programme in Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Das became ill and never completed the programme.

She was a dancer, actress, teacher and beauty queen, served as a volunteer member of the Guyana National Service around 1976 and was part of the Messenger Group promoting ‘Coolie’ art forms at a time when Indo-Guyanese culture was virtually excluded from national life. She was one of the first Indo-Caribbean women to be published.[2] Her poetry explicitly relates to ethnic identity, something which contrasts her with other female Indo-Caribbean poets.[3] Another theme in her writing is the working conditions in the Caribbean islands.[1] Das's A Leaf in His Ear was included in an article on "10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know".[4]

She died in 2003, from illness relating to cardiac arrest suffered 10 days before her death.[5]

Bibliography

Several of her poems were included in The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry (Heinemann, 1992).

References

  1. 1 2 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-06-10. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  2. ↑ http://www.mcreview.com/members_login/2007/fall/narrowcitizenship.pdf Archived July 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ David Dabydeen, Brinsley Samaroo (1987). India in the Caribbean. Hansib. p. 248. ISBN 9781870518000. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  4. ↑ Dambury, Gertry (2018). "10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know". LitHub. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  5. ↑ Mehta, Brinda J. (2004). Diasporic (dis)locations: Indo-Caribbean women writers negotiate the kala pani. University of the West Indies Press. p. 20. ISBN 9789766401573. Retrieved 2010-06-06.


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