Jennifer Clement studied English Literature and Anthropology at New York University and French Literature in Paris. Clement is the author of the memoir 'Widow Basquiat', which made the UK Booksellers' Choice list, and a novel 'A True Story Based on Lies', which was a finalist in the Orange Prize for Fiction. She was awarded the Canongate Prize for New Writing in 2001, and is also the author of several books of poetry: 'The Next Stranger', 'Newton's Sailor', and 'Lady of the Broom', each published in bilingual editions in Mexico. Clement's work has been translated into eight languages. Canongate Books is publishing her next novel 'The Poison That Fascinates' in 2008. Jennifer Clement lives in Mexico City and, with her sister Barbara Sibley, is co-director and -founder of the annual San Miguel Poetry Week. The present volume offers several new poems, the complete 'Lady of the Broom' sequence, plus selections from her two earlier books.
Jennifer Clement studied English Literature and Anthropology at New York University and also studied French literature in Paris, France. She is currently the President of PEN Mexico.
Clement is the author of the memoir Widow Basquiat that made the "Booksellers' Choice" list in the United Kingdom and two novels: A True Story Based on Lies, which was a finalist in the Orange Prize for Fiction in the United Kingdom, and The Poison That Fascinates. She is also the author of several books of poetry: The Next Stranger (with an introduction by W.S. Merwin), Newton's Sailor, Lady of the Broom and Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems. Her prize-winning story A Salamander-Child has been published as an art book with work by the Mexican painter Gustavo Monroy. Clement's work has been translated into 10 languages.
Jennifer Clement won the Canongate Prize for her story A Salamander-Child. In 2007 she received a MacDowell Fellowship and the MacDowell Colony named her the Robert and Stephanie Olmsted Fellow for 2007-08. In 2009 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was named the Thornton Writer-in-Residence at Lynchburg College, USA.
Clement was awarded Mexico's prestigious "Sistema Nacional de Creadores" grant and in 2001 and she is also the recipient of a US-Mexico Fund for Culture (FONCA, Fundacion Cultural Bancomer, the Rockefeller Foundation) grant for the San Miguel Poetry Week, which she founded in 1997 with her sister, Barbara Sibley.
Clement's work has appeared in numerous anthologies including The Best of The American Voice and Akzente, The London Times, The Herald, Poetry London, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, National Geographic, The Warwick Review and The Independent Magazine, among others, have published her stories, poems and essays. Recently, the composer Jan Gilbert created an "Eleven Song Setting" of Clement's The Lady of the Broom for soprano, flute, viola, and violoncello.
Jennifer Clement lives in Mexico City, Mexico.
