Junauda Juanita Petrus-Nasah is an American author, filmmaker, performance artist, and "pleasure activist". Her debut novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, was a winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor Award.
Early life
Petrus was born on Dakota land in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is of Afro-Caribbean descent. Her mother and aunt were born in Trinidad and moved to Minnesota. She was one of five daughters born to her mother and father; her father had a total of eleven children from five wives. As a child, Petrus wanted to be an astronaut and enjoyed reading V.C. Andrews, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Anne Rice, and Alice Walker. She came out as gay to her family at age 30 and met her wife, a native of Cameroon, four years later.
Career
Petrus' piece There Are Other Worlds was performed at Intermedia Arts in 2015. She and Erik Ehn co-wrote Queen, which was performed at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in 2016. Queen was partly inspired by Petrus' 2015 poem "Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers?" This poem was contributed to the anthology How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation by Maureen Johnson, which was released in 2018. Her 2019 novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, is a coming of age story of two 16-year-old queer black girls in Minneapolis. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Petrus wrote a short prose piece "Sweetness for George". Petrus' works incorporate themes such as black diasporic futurism, female friendships, queerness, black community, identity, and healing. She is inspired by her mother, Al Green, nature, and women. Petrus is an affiliated writer of The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Along with Erin Sharkey, she co-founded the group Free Black Dirt, a collective of writers and creators who seek to "spark and engage in critical conversations". The group organizes events to showcase original performance and theatre works by emerging artists. Petrus describes herself as a "pleasure activist", which she claims her art has "healing power" and relates to themes involving desire and pleasure. She has written about her pleasure activist work in Adrienne Maree Brown's book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, which explains pleasure activism as making social justice work "the most pleasurable human experience."
Personal life
Petrus lives in Minneapolis with her wife, Ngowo Nasah, and family.
Awards
Petrus was recognized as a City PagesTwin Cities artist of the year in 2016. In 2020, Petrus received a Coretta Scott KingHonor Award for The Stars and the Blackness Between Them. Petrus has also been awareded several fellowships.
