Shani Mootoo is a Canadian writer of fiction, poetry and essays. Born in Dublin to Trinidadian parents, Mootoo originally came to Canada as a student and later returned as an immigrant. Her work addresses various permutations of identity and belonging, along with family and national histories. Originally a visual artist and video maker, Mootoo's first published work was a collection of short stories, Out on Main Street (1993), followed in 1996 by the internationally recognized Cereus Blooms at Night.

The author of ten books (to date), Mootoo is known for lush, evocative imagery and stories underpinned by complex ideas about desire, memory and history. Each book explores an aspect of these, and of how the past can influence the present, both personally and in terms of national identity, as in the poems of Oh Witness Dey! (2024), which considers Caribbean and British and colonial histories. Her most recent book, Starry Starry Night (2025) is a work of autofiction but here, too, the personal is informed by larger histories. Originally a visual artist, Mootoo brings to her literary practice skills she learned as an artist. For example, whilst writing Cereus she followed Jasper John's instructions from a 1964 performance piece: Take an object, do something to it. Do something else to it. (Repeat.). In this way she built the story that eventually became a successful novel.

In her novels and books of poetry, Mootoo explores why and how we find ourselves loving, and who it is that we run to and run from. Can we really know and trust even the people to whom we are closest, live with, sleep with? What is family? What is desire? Can we ever really rely on anyone, or are we ultimately on our own and must fend for ourselves?

Along with her writing, Mootoo continues to work as an artist, with photography as the medium. The story-telling apparent in her writing has influenced her photographic work, in that she endeavours to relate what ought to feel like a book-length story in a single frame of a photograph.