The rape of angels

And the confirmation of creeps

The black people are their own worst

enemy-ness of it all

The delicate drownings

And the optimistic suicides

Here on this island of seven million heroes

Here, the mad miraculous insistence

Upon living life with dignity.

—-”View from the Citadelle”

IAN GREGORY STRACHAN was born in Nassau, Bahamas in 1969, the last of six children.  He is Associate Professor of English at the College of The Bahamas.  He received a BA in English from Morehouse College (1990) and an MA (1993) and PhD (1995) in English from the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a former Research Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia (1998-1999) and a former Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (1999-2001).  He served as Chair of the School of English Studies at COB from 2004-2007.   His book, Paradise and Plantation: Tourism and Culture in the Anglophone Caribbean, was published in 2002 and discusses the politics of tourism in the region.  He is a poet, playwright, novelist and filmmaker. His first novel, God’s Angry Babies was published in 1997.  He has written and directed a number of plays that have been performed nationally and internationally, including No Seeds in Babylon (1991), which appears in the anthology Contemporary Drama for the Caribbean (2001) and Diary of Souls (1999).  In 1996 he founded the Track Road Theatre Foundation and served as its Director until 2006. In 2007 his poetry was included in the anthology New Caribbean Poetry (Carcanet  2007).  He wrote and directed his first film, Show Me Your Motion: The Ringplay Games of The Bahamas in 2006.  In 2007 this documentary was featured in the UNESCO Caribbean Traveling Film Showcase. He was the author of the popular newspaper column “East Street Blues” from 2006 to 2008 and was the host of the daily public affairs talk show, “The Nation Today” in 2009.  He is also a founder and member of the civil society advocacy group, the 1962 Foundation.

CONTACTS

P. O. Box SB 52746

Nassau, New Providence

BAHAMAS

(242) 302-4381

strachantalk@gmail.com

istrachan@cob.edu.bs