Margaret Cezair-Thompson

Margaret Cezair-Thompson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where she attended Saint Andrew's High School for Girls. As the daughter of Dudley J. Thompson, noted Jamaican QC who once served as a Jamaican cabinet minister and diplomat, Cezair-Thompson recognizes her father's influence in her work: "My father's life has spanned almost a century of Caribbean and African history and being a lover both of history and storytelling and having a father who had so many first-hand stories of great events and people influenced me enormously."^[1] He met her mother in Manchester, England, where Cezair-Thompson's maternal grandfather, Dr. Hubert Cezair, was a West Indian doctor.

Cezair-Thompson left Jamaica to study English literature at Barnard College and Columbia University. She then went on to complete her PhD at Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she wrote her dissertation on V. S. Naipaul with the help of legendary critic Alfred Kazin. Although she has lived outside Jamaica for many years, Cezair-Thompson retains strong ties to her native country. Like many characters in her novels, she was a child when Jamaica became an independent nation in 1962, and she has witnessed the country's changes. She currently lives in Massachusetts where she continues to work and write.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cezair-Thompson