On the Very Edge

<i>On the Very Edge: Bidentities in Michelle Cliff's Fiction</i> uses the life and work of bisexual biracial and bicultural author Michelle Cliff (1946-2016) to develop an entirely new approach to intersectional cultural race and gender/sexuality studies that prioritizes bi-ness as a methodological tool. The book focuses not simply on bisexuality biracialism or biculturalism as isolated identity concepts; rather it explores the very nature of these intersectional identity categories as configured by Cliff. The text therefore represents a reclamation of bi identity in Cliff's work as a much broader cultural and not just sexual or racial category arguing that Cliff's spaces and/or stages of bi-ness are in themselves significant in understanding contemporary global identity politics as well as in navigating complex and often damaging identity constructs. <p/>Partnered with poet Adrienne Rich and passing as white Michelle Cliff's sexuality and cultural ethnicity were often invisible. Yet her acclaimed work--<i>Abeng</i> <i>No Telephone to Heaven</i> <i>Bodies of Water</i> <i>If I Could Write This in Fire</i> <i>Free Enterprise</i> and others--demonstrates the intersections between bisexuality biracialism and biculturalism in often profound ways. Drawing on original research interviews diaries editorials and other correspondences <i>On the Very Edge</i> will have far-reaching implications in the understanding of complex Caribbean identity politics and intersectional race gender and sexuality studies at large.