Education:

Master of Arts Degree, The University of Guelph, 2010.

Postgraduate year, Emily Carr College of Art and Design, 1981-82.

Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, The University of Western Ontario, 1976-1980.

Books:

Starry Starry Night, novel, Book*hug Press, Canada, 2025.

Oh Witness Dey! poetry, Book*hug Press, Canada 2024.

Cane | Fire, poetry, Book*hug Press, Canada, 2022.

Polar Vortex, novel, Book*Hug Press, Canada, 2020. (Reprinted Akashic Books, New York, 2020).

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, novel, Doubleday, Canada, 2014. (Reprinted Akashic Books, New York, 2017).

Valmiki's Daughter, novel, House of Anansi Press, Canada, 2008.

He Drown She in the Sea, novel, Grove Press, New York, 2005.

The Predicament of Or, poetry, Raincoast/Polestar Publishers, Canada, 2002.

Cereus Blooms at Night, novel, McClelland and Stewart Publishers, Canada, 1996. (Reprinted Penguin Modern Classic, New York, 2022; Reprinted Vintage Classics, UK, 2023).

Out on Main Street, short story collection, Press Gang Publishers, Canada, 1993.

Anthologized writings:

“Witness, Oh Witness Dey”, pp. 94-107, in Candice Lin: Pigs and Poison, Mousse Publishing, Bristol, UK, 2023.

“We”, pp. 93-99, The Afterlives of Indenture, ed, Andil Gosine and Nalini Mohabir, Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing, Issue 110, Routledge, 2022.

“eye wall replacement cycle,” pp. 337, Global Anglophone Indian Poems, Poetry July/August 2019, Volume 214, number 4, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, Sheridan Press, USA, 2019.

“Out on Main Street,” pp. 206-216, The Penguin Book of Migration Literature, ed. Dohra Ahmed, Penguin Books, 2019.

“The Funeral Party,” pp. 58-81, Trinidad Noir: The Classics, ed. Lisa Allen Agostini, Jeanne Mason, Akashic Press, NYC, 2016.

“The Bonnaire Silk Cotton Tree”, The Haunted Tropics: Caribbean Ghost Stories, ed. Martin Munro, University of The West Indies Press, Jamaica, 2015.“On Becoming an Indian Starboy,” pp. 167-172, The Cross-Dressed Caribbean: Writing, Politics, Sexualities, ed. Maria Cristina Fumagalli et al., University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2013.

“The Upside-downness of the World as It Unfolds,” pp. 53-65, Border Crossings: A Trilingual Anthology of Caribbean Women Writers, ed. Nicole Roberts, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, University of The West Indies Press, Jamaica, 2011.

“The Bonnaire Silk Cotton Tree,” pp. 233-248, Trinidad Noir: The Classics, ed. Earl Lovelace and Robert Antoni, Akashic Press, NYC, 2008.

“Poetry Lesson,” pp. 288-296, Writing Life: Celebrated Canadian and International Authors on Writing and Life, ed. Constance Rooke, McClelland and Stewart, Canada, 2006.

“Out on Main Street,” pp. 184-195, The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Short Stories, ed. Emma Donoghue, Carroll & Graff Fiction, New York, 1999.

“Photo Parenthesis,” pp 105-124, Desire: in Seven Voices, ed. Lorna Crozier, Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver, B.C. 1999.

“Lemon Scent,” pp. 165-168, Hot & Bothered: Short Short Fiction on Lesbian Desire, ed. Karen X. Tulchinsky, Arsenal Press, Vancouver, B.C. 1998.

“A Garden of Her Own,” pp.157-169, The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women, ed. Denise Chong, Viking, Penguin Books, Canada, 1997.

“Cereus Blooms at Night,” pp. 114-122, Left Bank: Collection No.6: Kid’s Stuff, Blue Heron Publishing, Inc, Hillsboro, Oregon, 1994.

Awards:

Library and Archives Canada Scholar Award, 2024.

Engel Findlay Award, The Writers’ Trust, 2022.

Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Western University, 2021.

Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Award, 2017.

Chalmers Fellowship, 2016.

K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Literature, 2012.

Canada Council for the Arts for Writing, Visual Arts, and Film and Video, 1992- 2013.

Ontario Arts Council, Writing and Publishing, 2012.

Selected Literary Festivals:

Toronto International Festival of Authors, 2025.

Afterwords Literary Festival, Halifax, 2025.

Wild Writers Literature Festival, Waterloo, 2024, 2025.

Ottawa Writers Festival, Ottawa, 2024, 2025.

Thin Air, Winnipeg, 2024.

Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, Eden Mills, 2024.

GritLit, Hamilton, 2024.

Toronto International Festival of Authors, Toronto, 2022.

Miami Book Fair, Florida, 2017.

PEN World Voices Literary Festival, New York City, 2017.

Galle Literary Festival, Sri Lanka, 2016.

Kandy Literary Festival, Sri Lanka, 2016.

Stratford Festival, CBC Ideas, The Challenge of Words, Stratford, Ontario, 2016.

International Festival of Authors, Toronto, Ontario, 2016.

Trinidad and Tobago NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago, 2015.

Perth Literary Festival, Australia, 2010.

Sydney Writers Festival, Australia, 1999.

Kapittel Stavanger International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Speech, Norway, 1999.

Teaching:

Affiliated faculty member (thesis advisor), University of Guelph-Humber, Ontario, Canada, 2015 to 2019.

External examiner for MFA Creative Writing Candidates, Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad, 2015 to 2020.

Graduate Seminar in Creative Writing, Writer in Residence program, University of Toronto, Winter 2015.

Guest instructor in Creative Writing, Graduate level, The University of The West Indies, Trinidad Campus, February-March, 2011.

Creative Writing Program, The Department of English and Film, The University of Alberta, Canada, 2001-2006.

Selected Guest Lectures and Keynote addresses:

Writing in Place: Voices from—and in--Canada, Kreisel Lecture, Edmonton, 2026.

Untold Stories of the Past 150 Year, Keynote address, University College Dublin, 2017.

Bodies, Boundaries & Borders: Conversations of Crossing in Shani Mootoo’s Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, 2017.

Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (CACLALS), readings, Calgary, 2016.

The Heliconian Literary Lecture Series, The Heliconian Club, Yorkville, Toronto, 2011.

Keynote address, ASNEL Conference Bayreuth, Germany, Contested Communities, Narration, Imagination, 2010.

Lecture and Reading, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA, 2010.

University of Kansas Distinguished Lecture, February 2010.

Keynote address, Canadian Studies Conference on Film and Video, The University of Pune, India, 2007.

Keynote address, 10th Anniversary International Conference- The Caribbean Woman Writer as Scholar-Imagining/Theorizing/Creating, invited by The Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, Hollywood, Florida, USA 2006.

Distinguished Morton President’s Lecture-University of Manitoba, Canada, 2006.

Munroe Beattie President’s Lecture, Carlton University, Ottawa, Canada, 2006.

Invited Residencies:

Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer in Residence, Simon Fraser University, 2026

Jack McClelland Writer in Residence, University of Toronto, 2015.

Writer in Residence, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad, 2011.

Writer in Residence, The University of Guelph, 2010.

Writer in Residence, The University of Alberta, 2001-2002.

Visiting Scholar, Mills College, Oakland, California, USA, 2000.

Selected Writings on Shani Mootoo’s work:

Judith Misrahi Barak, Ritu Tayagi, H. Kalpana: Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora: Indian Perspectives, Routledge India, 2023.

Thiago Marcel Moyano, Mayumi Llari, Daniel Ferraz: Os alterlugares do corpo: a diaspora caribenha de Shani Mootoo, Pimenta Cultural, Brazil, 2023.

Halloran, V.N. (2023). Re-mapping the Caribbean Gothic in Nalo Hopkinson’s Sister Mine and Shani Mootoo’s He Drown She in the Sea. In: Ferly, O., Zimmerman, T. (eds) Chronotropics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32111-5_9

Thiago Marcel Moyano, Masculinidafes fiora do lugar: genero e desclocamentos em Valmiki’s Daughter de Shani Mootoo, Olho d’Agua, 2020.

Sissy Helff: Sanghamitra Dalal; Same-Sex Love, Gender and Identity in Shani Mootoo’s work and her recent Valmiki’s Daughter, Coolabah, Volume 9, 2012.

Journal of West Indian Literature, Shani Mootoo: Writing, Difference and the Caribbean, Vol. 19, No. 2, April 2011.

Gayatri Gopinath: Impossible Desires- Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures, Duke University Press, 2005.

Brinda Mehta: Diasporic (Dis)locations, Indo-Caribbean Women Writers Negotiate the Kala Pani, University of The West Indies Press, 2004.

Juror for Grants and Awards (selected list):

Amazon Canada First Novel Award, 2025.

The Governor General’s Fiction Award, Canada, 2018.

Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2015.

The Writers’ Union of Canada Danuta Gleed Award 2012.

Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Arts Fellowships, 2013.

Canada Council for The Arts, writing and publishing, Visual arts, and Film and Video, through the years 1992- 2010.

Writers' Trust Dayne Ogilvie Fiction Award, Canada, 2009.

The Governor General’s Fiction Award, Canada, 2007.