Olive Senior
| Olive Senior | |
|---|---|
| Born | 23 December 1941 Trelawny, Cockpit Country, Jamaica |
| Occupation | poet, novelist, short-story and non-fiction writer |
| Nationality | Jamaican |
| Period | 910932 |
| Notable works | Gardening in the Tropics, Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage, Summer Lightning, Over The Roofs |
| Website | |
| www |
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Olive Marjorie Senior (born 23 December 1941) is a Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer currently living in Toronto, Canada. Honours she has received include, among others, a Musgrave Gold Medal awarded in 2005 by the Institute of Jamaica for her contributions to literature.
Born in rural Jamaica in Trelawny, Cockpit Country, the seventh of 10 children, she attended to Montego Bay High School For Girls. At the age of 19 she joined the staff of the Jamaica Gleaner in Kingston and later worked with the Jamaica Information Service. Senior later won a scholarship to study journalism at the Thomson Foundation in Cardiff, Wales. As a Commonwealth scholar she attended Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa, Canada, where she earned a degree in 1967.
While at university she began writing fiction and poetry. On her return to Jamaica, she worked as a freelancer in public relations, publishing and speech writing before joining the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies, where she edited the journal Social and Economic Studies (1972–77). In 1982 she joined the Institute of Jamaica as editor of the Jamaica Journal. As the managing director of Institute of Jamaica Publications, Senior oversaw the publication of a number of books on Jamaican history and culture.
In 1987 Senior won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for her first collection of stories, and after Hurricane Gilbert hit Jamaica in 1988, she moved to Europe, where she lived for short periods in Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, before settling in Toronto, Canada, in the early 1990s. Senior returns to Jamaica and the wider Caribbean frequently, while the region remains a central theme to her work. She writes, lectures and provides workshops around the world.
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