Author and playwright Suzanne Dracius was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, and grew up in Sceaux, a suburb of Paris. She later returned to Martinique as a professor of classical literature.  In 1989, she published her first novel, L’autre qui danse. Read More Her short stories “La Montagne de Feu” and “La Virago,” from her collection of stories Rue Monte au Ciel, have been translated for American anthologies. In 2005, Dracius published the play Lumina Sophie dite Surprise, featuring a protagonist who led a revolt of other women of her class against their white European overseer in 1870. In 2008, Dracius published her first collection of poems, Exquise déréliction métisse,  for which she won the Prix Fetkann. Dracius has been a visiting professor at the University of Georgia and Ohio University. In 2010 Dracius won a Prix de la Société des Poètes Français (Prize of the Society of the French Poets) for her body of work. Dracius’s work emphasizes Martinique’s complex cultural history, and its shaping by Asian, European, and  African cultures.