Ann Diamond | |
Birth Date: | 11 April 1951 |
Birth Place: | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Occupation: | Writer, poet, novelist |
Alma Mater: | Concordia University Goddard College |
Genre: | Poetry, Fiction |
Awards: | Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction (1994) |
Ann Diamond (born 11 April 1951 in Montreal)[1] is a Canadian poet, short story writer, and novelist.
Diamond was born 11 April 1951 in Montreal. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University before studying creative writing at Goddard College.
Diamond's first book, Lil, was published in 1977. Her second book, A Nun's Diary, was adapted for theatre by Robert LePage (retitled Echo) and presented in Montreal and Toronto at Theatre Passe Muraille.[2] Her third book of poetry, Terrorist Letters, was published in 1992.
Expanding beyond poetry, Diamond released her first novel, Mona's Dance, in 1989, followed by her short story collections Snakebite in 1989 and Evil Eye in 1991. Her narrative style has been called "distinctive" as it "blur[s] ... realism and surrealism"; her fiction also tends to "feature female characters burdened by painful relationships." Evil Eye went one to win the 1994 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.[3] In 2000, Diamond released Dead White Males, followed by Static Control in 2006.
In 2006, Diamond published a memoir, My Cold War, where she claims to be a victim of secret mind-control experiments, allegedly sponsored by the American CIA. The book was republished under the title A Certain Girl in 2011.
In 2014, Diamond published The Man Next Door about her friend and neighbour Leonard Cohen.[4] Since then Diamond has made claims that Cohen was a CIA and Mossad agent who warned of a genocide of non-Jews planned by an unnamed cabal.[5] [6]
Diamond has stated that she has a sub-personality that is a "shaman whose deep mission is liberating stories from the world of the unconscious".[7] Ann Diamond counts herself as a supporter of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and fully supports his decision to invade Ukraine. She believes that the killing of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians was necessary in order to protect Russian independence.