Brenda Flanagan left school in Trinidad at age 14 to help support her family. In 1967 she came to the USA, where she worked as a domestic servant. Marriage and motherhood further kept her from an education until 1975, when she began her studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of the prize-winning novel You Alone Are Dancing, a collection of stories, In Praise of Island Women and Other Crimes, and the forthcoming Allah in the Islands. [extracted from 2010 festival brochure]
