Born in Grenada in the Caribbean, Joan Amin-Addo joined the faculty of Goldsmiths, University of London, in 1994, as founder and Director of the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies. She has taught at Vassar College in the USA and lectured at many universities internationally, including SUNY Geneseo, the University of Turku in Finland and the University of Trento. She has also led workshops on creative non-fiction writing. At Goldsmiths, she is the convenor for the undergraduate options "Caribbean Women's Writing" and "Black British Literature", as well as convenor of the "Literature of the Caribbean and its Diasporas" pathway within the Comparative Literary Studies MA programme. She is also co-convenor, with Deirdre Osborne, of the world's first MA in Black British Writing, which Hannah Pool described as a "landmark for black culture", while novelist Alex Wheatle sees it adding "to the fabric of British literature".
Publishing and writing
In 1995 Anim-Addo founded Mango Publishing, specialising in the "Caribbean voice", with a particular focus on women's writing, the Mango list featuring books by such writers as Beryl Gilroy, Velma Pollard and Jacob Ross. In 2008 Anim-Addo wrote the libretto to Imoinda, a re-writing of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko. Anim-Addo's other published work includes poetry collections — Haunted by History in 2004 and Janie: Cricketing Lady in 2006 – and a literary history, Touching the Body: History, Language and African-Caribbean Women’s Writing. She co-edited I Am Black, White, Yellow: An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe and Interculturality and Gender, and is the founder-editor of New Mango Season, a journal of Caribbean women's writing. In December 2016 Anim-Addo was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award for "invaluable contributions to literature and to literary and cultural studies" by the literary quarterly journal Callaloo.
Selected bibliography
Longest Journey: A History of Black Lewisham, Deptford Forum Publishing, 1995,
Framing the Word: Gender & Genre in Caribbean Women's Writing, Whiting & Birch, 1996
Sugar, Spices And Human Cargo: An Early Black History of Greenwich, Greenwich Leisure Services, 1996
Haunted by History: Poetry, Mango Publishing, 2004,
Another Doorway Visible Inside the Museum, Mango Publishing, 2004
Janie: Cricketing Lady : a Journey Poem : Carnival and Hurricane Poems, Mango Publishing, 2006,
I Am Black/White/Yellow: An Introduction to the Black Body in Europe, Mango Publishing, 2007
Imoinda, or She Who Will Lose Her Name: A Play for Twelve Voices in Three Acts, Mango Publishing, 2008
