Angela Barry

Angela Barry (née Richards) is a Bermudian writer and educator. She spent more than 20 years living abroad – in England, France, The Gambia, Senegal and Seychelles – before returning to Bermuda, where she has primarily worked as a lecturer since the 1990s. Her creative writing reflects her connections with the African diaspora, and as a PhD student at Lancaster University she worked on cross-cultural projects. She was married to Senegalese Abdoulaye Barry and they have two sons, Ibou and Douds, although eventually divorcing. Background and education Born in Bermuda, she is the youngest of the three children of Madree and Edward Richards (who was the second premier of Bermuda and the first Black Bermudian to head the country's government). Barry's elder sister is London-based circuit judge Patricia Dangor, and their brother is Bermuda parliamentarian Bob Richards. After receiving her early education in Bermuda at Central School and at The Berkeley Institute, Barry went to England in the 1960s at the age of 15 to study for her A-levels, living with her sister while attending Holland Park School in London. She went on to the University of York, obtaining a BA (Hons) degree in English & Comparative Literature, then the Sorbonne in Paris where she studied French for two years. After earning a master's degree in Language Arts & Education from the University of Sussex, she worked as an English teacher in the UK. After her first marriage she lived in The Gambia, Senegal and the Seychelles. She returned to Bermuda in 1989. In 1993, she won a James Michener Creative Writing Fellowship to attend the Caribbean Summer Writers Institute at the University of Miami. For many years a lecturer at Bermuda College, she introduced there a groundbreaking course in Bermudian Literature, "starting with early perceptions of the Island in the 17th century and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, to Mary Prince in the 19th century". She is co-chair of the Burland Collection Committee, concerned with the literary legacy of Brian Burland, described by Barry as "the greatest writer never to be known or acknowledged in the country of his birth". Barry has also taught at Bermuda High School.