Beth Brant

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beth E. Brant , also Degonwadonti , (born May 6, 1941 in Melvindale, Michigan , according to another source in the Tyendinaga reservation in Ontario ; † August 6, 2015 , presumably Detroit ) was an Indian- Canadian writer .

Life

Beth Brant, or as she is called by her Indian name: Degonwadonti, is the daughter of a white mother and an Indian father. She grew up with the family of her father, a Bay of Quinte Mohawk from Ontario. She experienced racism as a child , as her mother's family refused to associate with an Indian. She lived most of her life in the border area of ​​Ontario, Canada, and Michigan, USA . She married at the age of 17 and subsequently had three daughters.

After divorcing her abusive, alcoholic husband, she and her children had to support herself and her children by doing odd jobs because she had no school education. At 33, she confessed to being a lesbian . From 1981 she began to write and publish anthologies of Indian literature . From 1989 to 1990 she was a lecturer at the University of British Columbia and in 1993 at the University of Toronto . She worked intermittently as a creative writing teacher and lived in Detroit .

Brant characterized himself as a "lesbian mother and grandmother, a Taurus with Scorpio ascendant, a school dropout, a working class woman". She founded the Detroit book publisher "Turtle Grandmother books", which together with the sponsoring group made women authors from the First Nations known and supported them.

Honors

She received the Michigan Council for the Arts Creative Writing Award in 1984 and 1986 , the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991, and the Canada Council Award in Creative Writing in 1992 .

reception

In her stories, Brant mainly addressed topics related to her nationality and her homosexuality . It was experiences of racism and sexism that shaped her, and for which she blamed white immigrants in America.

Works (selection)

As an author

Essays
  • Hiding from Fascism . In: Off our Backs , Vol. 11 (1981), Issue 2, p. 26 ISSN  0030-0071
  • Giveaway. Native Lesbian Writers . In: Signs , Vol. 18 (1993), No. 4, pp. 944-947, ISSN  0097-9740
  • Writing Life . In: Journal of Lesbian Studies , Vol. 4 (2000), Issue 4, pp. 21-34, ISSN  1089-4160
stories
  • Stillborn Night . In: Joy Harjo (Ed.): Reinventing the enemy's language. Contemporary native women's writing of North America . Norton, New York 1997 ISBN 0-3930-4029-1
  • Food & Spirits . Stories 1991 ISBN 0-9323-7993-1
    • Transl. Sophie von Lenthe (excerpt): A death in the family , in: Birgit Herrmann (Hrsg.): Women in Canada. Stories and poems . Dtv, Munich 1993 ISBN 3-423-11713-3 pp. 259-274
  • So generously . In: Jewele Gomez (Ed.): Best Lesbian Erotica 1997 . Cleis Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1997 ISBN 1-5734-4065-5
  • Home coming . In: Frontiers. A journal of women studies , Vol. 12, 1991, Issue 1 ISSN  0160-9009 pp. 71-76
  • Wild Turkeys . In: Susan Koppelman (Ed.): Women in the trees. United States Women's short stories about bettering and resistance 1839-1994 . Beacon Press, Boston 1996 ISBN 0-8070-6777-6
  • A long story . In: Susan Wadia-Ells (Ed.): The adoption Reader. Birth Mothers, adoptive mothers, and adopted daughters tell their stories . Seal Press, Seattle 1995 ISBN 1-8780-6765-6
  • Simple act . In: Carol Bruchac (Ed.): The stories we hold secret. Tales of women's spiritual development . Greenfield Review Press, Greenfield Center, NY 1986, ISBN 0-9126-7866-6 .
  • Swimming upstream . In: Craig Lesley (Ed.): Talking Leaves. Contemporary native American short stories . Delta Trade, New York 1991, ISBN 0-3853-1272-5 .
novel
Non-fiction

As editor

  • A Gathering of Spirit. A collection of North American Indian Women . Forebrand Books, Ithaca, NY. 1988, ISBN 0-932379-55-9 .
  • In a vast dreaming . Native Women in the arts, Toronto 1995.
  • I'll Sing 'til the Day I Die. Conversations with Tyendinaga elders . McGilligan, Toronto 1995, ISBN 0-9698064-2-6 .
  • "Survival's Song". Beth Brant and the Power of the Word . In: Mellus , 1999, No. 3, pp. 129-140, ISSN  0163-755X

literature

Essays
  • A. Burford: "Her mouth is medicine". Beth Brant and Paula Gunn Allen's decolonizing queer erotics . In: Journal of Lesbian Studies , Vol. 17, 2013, Issue 2 ISSN  1089-4160 pp. 167-179
  • Joan Gabriele: Brant, Beth (1941) . In: The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States . Oxford University Press 1995, p. 133
  • Tara Princes-Hughes: Contemporary Two-Spirit. Identity in the fiction of Paula Gunn Allen and Beth Brant . In: Studies in American Indian Literatures , Vol. 10, 1998, Issue 4 ISSN  0730-3238 pp. 9-32
Monographs
  • Virginie Alba: Les productions littéraires de Jeannette C. Armstrong , Beth Brant et Lee Maracle. Des exemples de l'Activisme politique chez les femmes autochtones au Canada; une approche non-autochtone . Dissertation, University of Toulouse 1999
  • Karin Henjes: “Make words, not war!” Power, marginalization and counter-strategies in the texts of Chrystos and Beth Brant . Dissertation, University of Erlangen 1994

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Brant, Beth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brant, Beth E. (maiden name); Degonwadonti (Indian name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Melvindale, Michigan or Tyendinaga Reservation, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 2015
Place of death unsure: Detroit