Afua Cooper

Afua Cooper (born 8 November 1957) is a Jamaican-born Canadian historian. In 2018 she is an associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University. She is an author and dub poet. As of 2018 she has published five volumes of poetry.
Early life and education.
Born in Westmoreland, Jamaica, Cooper grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, and migrated to Toronto in 1980. She studied history at the University of Toronto, where she earned a PhD in African-Canadian history with specialties in slavery and abolition. Her dissertation, "Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause", is a biographical study of Henry Bibb, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist who lived and worked in Ontario.
Career.
Cooper has published four books of poetry, including "Memories Have Tongue" (1994), one of the finalists in the 1992 Casa de las Americas literary award. She is the co-author of "We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History" (1994). She has also released two albums of her poetry.
Her book "The Hanging of Angelique" (2006) tells the story of an enslaved African Marie-Joseph Angelique who was executed in Montreal at a time when Quebec was under French colonial rule. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction.
In 2011 Cooper was named to the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University. She also has expertise in women's history and New France studies.
In 2016 Cooper led the creation of a minor program in black and African diaspora studies at Dalhousie. In 2018 she was named poet laureate for the city of Halifax, holding the role until 2020.
Cooper has also written two historical novels for children, both based on real historical figures. My name is Henry Bibb: a story of slavery and freedom; and My name is Phillis Wheatley: a story of slavery and freedom, both published in 2009 by Kids Can Press.
Awards.
"We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History" was awarded the Ontario Historical Society's Joseph Brant Award for History in 1994. She is a winner of the Harry Jerome Award for professional excellence In 2015, Cooper received the Novia Scotia Human Rights Commission’s Dr. Burnley Allan “Rocky” Jones Award. In 2020, Cooper was awarded the Portia White Prize at the Creative Nova Scotia Awards Gala.