M. NourbeSe Philip is a poet and lawyer who was born in Tobago and now lives in Toronto, Canada. Her works include the poetry books Zong!, Discourse on the Logic of Language, Thorns, Salmon Courage, and She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks. She is also the author of two novels, Harriet’s Daughter and Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence, of the plays Coups and Calypsos, and Harriet’s Daughter, and of several volumes of essays. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Casa de las Americas Prize, a Lawrence Foundation Award for short fiction, and a Woman of Distinction Award in the Arts, among many others.