Photo: © Mike Gaurdaur
Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and raised in Trinidad, relocating to Canada in her early twenties. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) in 1980, and a Master of Arts in English and Theatre from the University of Guelph in 2010. While she practiced initially as a video maker and visual artist, for the last 30 years Mootoo has concentrated on novel writing, poetry, and photo-based work.
Mootoo’s artworks have been exhibited internationally, including at the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Venice Biennale. Her first collection of short stories, Out on Main Street, was published in 1993, beginning her literary career. Her first novel, Cereus Blooms at Night, was published in 1996 and shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, as well as being longlisted for the Booker Prize. Today, it has been reissued as both a Penguin Modern Classic and a Vintage Classic.
The Predicament of Or, her first collection of poetry, was published in 2002. Other novels include He Drown She in the Sea, which was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, Valmiki’s Daughter, and Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab, both of which were longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Mootoo’s latest novel, Polar Vortex, was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Her second book of poetry, Cane|Fire, was published in 2022, and her third, Oh Witness Dey!, in 2024.
Mootoo has served as writer-in-residence at universities across the world and frequently reads and speaks internationally. She was awarded a Doctor of Letters honoris causa from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary’s James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, and has been named a Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award Winner. The Writers’ Trust jury citation reads, in part, “With deep understanding and a fearless devotion, she worries at the knot of identity and transformation revealing, in an ever-expanding way, the cost of pursuing one’s dreams.”
Mootoo lives in Southern Ontario.
