About
Gillian Lee-Fong writes with historical precision and lyrical intensity about the complex multi-cultural heritage of seventeenth century Jamaican Maroons—an autonomous society of formerly enslaved people who escaped their captors. Born in Jamaica to parents of African, Chinese and Maroon heritage, she draws on her own personal connection to Jamaican culture and the liminal spaces of identity to explore the lasting implications and influences of the Maroons.
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Gillian has formal studies in creative writing, African studies, anthropology and is currently pursuing her PhD in psychology. She has worked extensively with refugee and immigrant communities, with a specific interest in advocating for the empowerment of women and children.
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Lee-Fong has also won awards for short fiction and non-fiction, including the Phyllis E. Newman Award (1998), the Langston Hughes Award (1999), and the Robert Frost Award (1999). In the words of historian and author, Dr. Harcourt Fuller, Lee-Fong's second novel, Abebi, "picks up the mantle and maintains the high literary standards bequeathed by previous literary giants in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean...such as D.T. Niane (Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali) and Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart).”
