Afua Cooper

Born in Westmoreland, Jamaica, Cooper grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and migrated to Toronto in 1980.[4] She studied history at the University of Toronto, where she earned a PhD in African-Canadian history with specialties in slavery and abolition.[4] Her dissertation, "Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause", is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario.

Cooper has published four books of poetry, including Memories Have Tongue (1994), one of the finalists in the 1992 Casa de las Americas literary award. She is the co-author of We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History (1994), which won the Joseph Brant Award for history. She has also released two albums of her poetry.

Her book The Hanging of Angelique (2006) tells the story of an enslaved African Marie-Joseph Angelique who was executed in Montreal at a time when Quebec was under French colonial rule.[5][6] It was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction.[7]

In 2011 Cooper was named to the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University.[8] She also has expertise in women's history and New France studies, and She is a winner of the Harry Jerome Award for professional excellence.

In 2016 Cooper led the creation of a minor program in black and African diaspora studies at Dalhousie.[9] In 2018 she was proclaimed Poet Laureate for the city of Halifax.[10]

Cooper has also written two historical novels for children, both based on real historical figures. My name is Henry Bibb: a story of slavery and freedom; and My name is Phillis Wheatley: a story of slavery and freedom, both published in 2009 by Kids Can Press.

Breaking Chains (Weelahs, 1983)

Red Caterpillar On College Street (Sister Vision Press, 1989)

Memories Have Tongue: Poetry (Sister Vision Press, 1992)

We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History, with Peggy Bristow, Dionne Brand, Linda Carty, Sylvia Hamilton and Adrienne Shadd (University of Toronto Press, 1994)

Utterances and Incantations: Women, Poetry, and Dub (Sister Vision Press, 1999)

The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!, with Adrienne Shadd and Carolyn Smardz Frost (Natural Heritage Books, 2002)

The Hanging of Angélique, The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal (HarperCollins, 2006)

Copper Woman and Other Poems(Natural Heritage Books, 2006)

My Name is Henry Bibb: A Story of Slavery and Freedom [historical fiction] (Kids Can Press, 2009)

My Name is Phillis Wheatley: A Story of Slavery and Freedom [historical fiction] (Kids Can Press, 2009)

“To Learn… Even a Little, The Letters of Solomon Washington,”in Hoping for Home, The Stories of Arrival (Scholastic Canada, 2011), 171–91.

WomanTalk: Women Dub Poets (Heartbeat Records, 1984)

Poetry Is Not a Luxury (Maya Music Group, 1985)

Your Silence Will Not Protect You (Maya Music, 1986)

Sunshine (Maya Music Group, 1989)

Worlds of Fire (Soundmind Productions, 2002)

Love and Revolution (Soundmind Productions, 2014)

• Afua Cooper Papers at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library - various personal and professional material, including poem and academic manuscripts
• Glossary of Canadian Poets