Angela Barry, originally named Richards, is a Bermudian writer and teacher. She lived in several countries outside Bermuda for over 20 years, including England, France, The Gambia, Senegal, and Seychelles. She returned to Bermuda in the 1990s and has worked mainly as a lecturer since that time. Her creative writing shows her links to the African diaspora. While studying for her PhD at Lancaster University, she participated in projects involving different cultures. She was married to Abdoulaye Barry from Senegal, and they had two sons, Ibou and Douds. They later divorced.
Background and education
She was born in Bermuda and is the youngest of three children of Madree and Edward Richards. Edward Richards was the second premier of Bermuda and the first Black Bermudian to lead the country's government. Her older sister, Patricia Dangor, is a judge in London, and her brother, Bob Richards, is a member of Bermuda's parliament.
She received her early education in Bermuda at Central School and The Berkeley Institute. In the 1960s, when she was 15 years old, she moved to England to study for her A-levels. She lived with her sister while attending Holland Park School in London. Later, she studied at the University of York, where she earned a BA (Hons) degree in English & Comparative Literature. She then studied French for two years at the Sorbonne in Paris. After completing a master's degree in Language Arts & Education from the University of Sussex, she worked as an English teacher in the United Kingdom. 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, she taught at Bermuda College, where she created an important course in Bermudian Literature. The course began with early views of Bermuda in the 17th century and included Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and it covered the work of Mary Prince in the 19th century. She is co-chair of the Burland Collection Committee, which focuses on the literary legacy of Brian Burland. Barry describes Burland as "the greatest writer never to be known or acknowledged in the country of his birth." She has also taught at Bermuda High School.
She participated in the Lancaster/Uganda Friends Writing Project, a collaboration between the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research at Lancaster University (where she earned her PhD) and the Femrite Women Writers Association in Kampala, Uganda. The project took place from October 2010 to March 2011.
Writing
Barry began writing short stories as part of the Bermuda Writers' Collective. Her stories were published in Palmetto Wine, a book released in 1990 by the collective, and in the 1993 anthology An Isle So Long Unknown: Short Stories.
In 2002, Barry’s book Endangered Species and Other Stories was published in the UK. The title was inspired by a song by Dianne Reeves called “I Am An Endangered Species.” This made Barry the first Bermudian adult fiction writer to have a book published by an international publisher since the 1960s. George Lamming, who wrote a recommendation for the book, said it “shows great skill in combining different stories that describe the Atlantic adventure.” Barry explained that her stories often explore how people handle differences, such as race, class, and gender, and how people of African descent find their place in the world. She also emphasized that Bermuda is a complex place with many challenges for those who do not follow traditional ways. In 2008, Barry and Rawle Frederick shared the Brian Burland Prize for Fiction for their books Endangered Species and A Ballad of Orange Valley, respectively.
Barry’s first novel, Gorée: Point of Departure, was published in 2010 by Peepal Tree Press. The book examines family and identity through the history of the Atlantic holocaust. Geoffrey Philp described the novel as “more than a memorial. It tells the story of connecting people across great distances, such as between Africa and the Caribbean, London and St. Lucia, and between suffering and hope in families separated by the ocean.” The book was nominated for the 2012 International Dublin Literary Award and won the Brian Burland Prize for Fiction in 2013.
In October 2017, Barry received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bermuda Arts Council. This award honors people who are pioneers in their field and have created important works that reflect the Bermudian spirit.
Barry’s writing has appeared in many journals, including The Bermudian Magazine, Massachusetts Review, The Caribbean Writer, BIM: Arts for the 21st Century, and Anales Caribe. She also contributed to the 2018 anthology So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Pacific and the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
In 2022, Barry published her second novel, The Drowned Forest. A reviewer for The Big Issue described the book as “a powerful look at Bermuda’s colonial past, showing how class, race, privilege, and education affect the lives of people on the island.” The reviewer also said Barry’s work reminds readers of the dangers of ignoring history and the importance of addressing the climate crisis.