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Afua Cooper
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Afua Cooper is the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University. She researches and writes on topics including slavery, abolition, and freedom, especially for the 18th and 19th centuries, gender studies, Black education, and Black literatures. Her ground-breaking book The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal was nominated for the prestigious Governor-General’s award. Her co-authored publication, We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull us up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History won the Joseph Brant Book Prize.
An accomplished and celebrated poet and novelist, she has published five books of poetry, including the critically acclaimed Copper Woman and Other Poems. Moreover, Afua is one of the pioneers of dub poetry in Canada, and has made a vast contribution to the field and that of Canadian poetry in general. Her work has garnered national and international prizes.