Anaïs Duplan

Anaïs Duplan (born 1992) is a queer and trans^[1] Haitian writer now based in the U.S.,^[2] with three book publications from Action Books, Black Ocean Press, and Brooklyn Arts Press,^[3] along with a chapbook from Monster House Press. His work has been honored by a Whiting Award^[4] and a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International.^[5][6] He is a Professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, of which he is also an alum.^[7]

Early life and education

Duplan was born in Jacmel, Haiti.^[2] He moved to the United States as a child and grew up in Boston and Brooklyn with his mother.^[8] His writing about his father's absence from his childhood and how it impacted his understanding of gender norms was published in The Paris Review,^[9] and he discussed his parents' impact on his work in an interview with The Rumpus.^[10] He also lived in Cuba for several years.^[11] Eventually, after attending Rhode Island School of Design, Duplan graduated from Bennington College in 2014^[12] and then the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2017.^[13]

Career

Duplan's poetry publications include the book Take This Stallion, published in 2016 by Brooklyn Arts Press, which Publishers Weekly wrote in a review "tactfully manages to stir the comical and casual into poems about pain, crippling emotional uncertainty, substance abuse, and death,"^[14] and I NEED MUSIC, published in 2021 by Action Books.^[3][15] The latter received praise from poets Jericho Brown, Major Jackson, and Shane McCrae,^[16] as well as positive reviews from Literary Hub^[17] and Make.^[18] In 2016 his poem My Heart Like a Needle Ever True Turns to the Maid of Ebon Hue caught the attention of PBS, because of its focus on Civil War spy Mary Bowser.^[19] In June 2021, Duplan was the guest editor for the Academy of American Poets's Poem-a-Day series.^[20][21]

Duplan's 2017 chapbook, Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus was inspired by his parents and how they have affected his work.^[22]

Duplan's first nonfiction book, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture, was published by Black Ocean Press in 2020 after excerpts were published in Ploughshares^[23] and Hyperallergic.^[24] The nonfiction book discusses the meanings of transition and passing in regard to gender, including the irreversible effects of testosterone therapy.^[23] Claudia Rankine listed it as a book she looked forward to reading in an interview with The New York Times,^[25] Hanif Abdurraqib called it "futuristic work,"^[26] and a review in Colorado Review noted that its style is "as much theoretical as it is journalistic as it is in the style of manifesto."^[27] One In 2022, Duplan received a Whiting Award for nonfiction,^[10] which NPR noted was a predictor of writers who would go on to become "household names".^[6] Duplan's outfit at the award reception caught the attention of Vanity Fair which described it as a "spectacular jumpsuit".^[4]

In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program^[9][28] developed to give artists of color arts space after a fundraiser on Kickstarter.^[29] The first artists-in-residence while Duplan served as director were Yulan Grant, Terrence Nance, Krista Franklin.^[29] In 2021, the center started new collaborations with Iowa City, including murals, interviews, and performances.^[30] While at Iowa, Duplan met Tracie Morris, when they "both presented talks at Columbia University's More Than A Manifesto conference", and she later interviewed him about black sociality, academia, and influences for The Los Angeles Review of Books.^[13] Duplan was also interviewed for the New York City Trans Oral History Project, in conjunction with New York Public Library's oral history project.^[11] He has been teaching at Bennington College, his alma mater, since 2021.

Since 2022 Duplan had been working as a guest curator at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. He was responsible for the development of the exhibition chapter on "Afrofuturism" as part of the exhibition "We is Future - Visions of New Communities". The museum terminated the contract around a week before the opening on 24 November 2023 because of his Pro-Palestine posts. The museum justified the move by saying that Duplan had published several anti-Semitic posts on his Instagram account in the preceding weeks. The museum spokesperson cites Duplan's November 10 post calling for support for the BDS^[31] movement, as what made them make that decision.^[32]

List of Works

Books

• Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Art Press, 2016)
• Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020)
• I NEED MUSIC (Action Books, 2021)

Chapbooks

• Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017)^[33]

Exhibitions

• We Turn (curated by danilo machado)^[34]
• Anonymous Donor
• INNTERDISCPLINE
• WE IS FUTURE (cancelled)^[35]

Honors and Awards

• 2021 – QUEER|ART|PRIZE^[36]
• 2021 – Marian Goodman Fellowship^[37]
• 2022 – Whiting Award^[38]
• 2022 – Black Visionaries Award^[39]

References

This page was last edited on 17 May 2024, at 07:57