Shani Mootoo

Shani Mootoo (born 1957) is a writer, visual artist and video maker. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Canada. She currently lives in Toronto. Quotes from interviews/conversations it is in troubled times, more than in any other, that the world desperately needs artists, our unique vision—ability to ‘see’–and our creativity. (2023) (What do you write with?) Trepidation sometimes, courage at others, and a nagging curiosity mostly. (2020) Poetry is a kind of nonfiction, through which awe—fear and wonder—can, oddly, be grounded and grounding. (2020) I don’t write about my life, but my experience of life certainly influences how I imagine characters act and react. As a person who for a long time existed on the edges of the cultural world here in Canada, identity issues were bound to play a part in my art and writing. But I had made the decision from the start not to position myself at the edge, but to imagine that I was at the centre and to write from there, asking no permissions in the story. The act of writing in that way was, if you will, a kind of pleading—here I am, just like you, let me tell my story. But the story between the covers of the book was itself clean. It was my political act. I did it again and again, and if anything has changed, it is that it is now ingrained in my practice. It is no longer a conscious political act. Perhaps it is a habit, or the habit of insistence on being where I say I am—in the centre. I recognize that this may be purely subjective. Let’s argue that it’s an act. But it is my survival act. This positioning of my characters and their stories has, I now realize, come to be assumed of how I will write. (2020) (What is the responsibility of the writer?) To find the right word. The only word that will work. The right image. To constantly educate ourselves, put ourselves in unfamiliar places, walk in others’ shoes. To ask questions, the same ones and news ones, but again and again. (2017) (What book would you send to the leader of a government that imprisons writers? ) Beloved by Toni Morrison, Coetzee’s Barbarian, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Orwell’s 1984. Quotes about Shani Mootoo scrutinizes the treacheries of language and longing as well the very acts of remembering and recording. Gentle and wise, her narratives calmly steer through the byways of some of our most hairy post-colonial meanderings-joy and pain and humour beeezily strung together and flung over shoulder. Ian Iqbal Rashid, used as blurb for Out on Main Street & Other Stories Shani Mootoo explores racial and religious diversity, and ambiguities of gender, to pose fundamental questions about who each of us is....A fine new talent to be welcomed and rejoiced in. Jane Rule, used as blurb for Out on Main Street & Other Stories External links artworks at Oeno Gallery AWARE Women Artists page GoodReads page Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian photographers