Michelle Cliff, a Jamaican-American writer "whose novels, stories and nonfiction essays drew on her multicultural identity to probe the psychic disruptions and historical distortions wrought by colonialism and racism," died June 12, the New York Times wrote. She was 69. Cliff and the late poet Adrienne Rich were longtime partners.
Her books include No Telephone to Heaven, Abeng, If I Could Write This in Fire, Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant, Everything Is Now: New & Collected Stories, Into the Interior, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise and The Land of Look Behind: Prose & Poetry.
Noting that Cliff worked briefly as a researcher at Time-Life Books and at W.W. Norton, the Times wrote that after attending the University of London, she "returned to Norton, where she was a production editor for books on history, women's studies and politics. In 1975, she met Ms. Rich, who was published by Norton."