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.^[4][5] His work has been honored by a Whiting Award^[6] and a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International.^[7][8] He is a Professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, of which he is also an alum.^[9][10][11]

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.^[12] 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,^[3] and he discussed his parents' impact on his work in an interview with The Rumpus.^[13] He also lived in Cuba for several years.^[14] Eventually, after attending Rhode Island School of Design, Duplan graduated from Bennington College in 2014^[15] and then the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2017.^[16]

Duplan's poetry publications include the book Take This Stallion, published in 2016 by Brooklyn Arts Press,^[10][17] 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,"^[18] and I Need Music, published in 2021 by Action Books.^[1][3][19] The latter received praise from poets Jericho Brown, Major Jackson, and Shane McCrae,^[20] as well as positive reviews from Literary Hub^[21] and Make.^[22] 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.^[23] In June 2021, Duplan was the guest editor for the Academy of American Poets's Poem-a-Day series.^[24][25]

Duplan's 2017 chapbook, Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus was inspired by his parents and how they have affected his work.^[13]

Duplan's first nonfiction book, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture, was published by Black Ocean Press in 2020^[26] after excerpts were published in Ploughshares^[27] and Hyperallergic.^[28] The nonfiction book discusses the meanings of transition and passing in regard to gender, including the irreversible effects of testosterone therapy.^[27] Claudia Rankine listed it as a book she looked forward to reading in an interview with The New York Times,^[29] Hanif Abdurraqib called it "futuristic work,"^[30] 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."^[31] In 2022, Duplan received a Whiting Award for nonfiction,^[13] which NPR noted was a predictor of writers who would go on to become "household names."^[8] Duplan's outfit at the award reception caught the attention of Vanity Fair which described it as a "spectacular jumpsuit."^[6]

In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program^[3][32] developed to give artists of color arts space after a fundraiser on Kickstarter.^[33] The first artists-in-residence while Duplan served as director were Yulan Grant, Terrence Nance, Krista Franklin.^[33] In 2021, the center started new collaborations with Iowa City, including murals, interviews, and performances.^[34] 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.^[16] Duplan was also interviewed for the New York City Trans Oral History Project, in conjunction with New York Public Library's oral history project.^[14] He has been teaching at Bennington College, his alma mater, since 2021.^[9]

Since 2022 Duplan had been working as a guest curator at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany.^[35] He was responsible for the development of the exhibition chapter on "Afrofuturism" as part of the exhibition "We is Future - Visions of New Communities."^[35][36] The museum terminated the contract around a week before the opening on 24 November 2023 because of his Pro-Palestine posts.^[35][36] The museum justified the move by saying that Duplan had published several anti-Semitic posts on his Instagram account in the preceding weeks.^[35][36] The museum spokesperson cites Duplan's November 10 post calling for support for the BDS movement, as what made them make that decision.^[35][36]

• Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Art Press, 2016)^[10][17][18]
• Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020)^{[22][26][29][30][31]}
• I Need Music (Action Books, 2021)^{[1][3][19][20]}

• Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017)^{[4][5][13][37]}

• INNTERDISCPLINE, Friends and Lovers, Brooklyn, NY, 2019^[38]
• Anonymous Donor, Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2019^[39]
• We Turn, EFA Project Space, New York, NY, 2021^[40]
• We is Future (cancelled), Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2023^[35][36]

• 2021 – QUEER|ART|PRIZE^[41][42][43]
• 2021 – Marian Goodman Fellowship^[44]
• 2022 – Whiting Award^[6][43][45]
• 2022 – Black Visionaries Award from Instagram and the Brooklyn Museum^[43][46]