'I Name Myself Zami': Maud Sulter's Queer Form

Thompson, Susannah (2024) 'I Name Myself Zami': Maud Sulter's Queer Form. Scottish Literary Review, 16 (1). pp. 129-162. ISSN 1756-5634

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Abstract

Born in the Gorbals in Glasgow, Maud Sulter (1960–2008) had an extraordinarily polymathic career encompassing community education and activism, arts administration, academia, visual art, curating, publishing and editing. Since her death in 2008, critical attention has focused primarily on her work (and identity) as a Black British artist, a peer of a generation of Black women who came to prominence in the 1980s and whose work (after an extended hiatus in some instances) is once again attracting acclaim. Sulter's prolific career as a writer has often been eclipsed by this framing, as have some of the less visible aspects of her identity (particularly class, nationality and sexuality) in spite of the fact that these subjects were recurrent themes throughout her creative practice. In her poetry, essays, and creative writing (as well as through publishing and editorial projects) Sulter frequently cited other queer Black writers and artists or dedicated her work to them, creating intertextual kinships across time and space. The form and style of Sulter's writing, including writing presented as part of or adjacent to visual art projects, was a crucial element of her politics. This article considers the queer forms of Sulter's multi-modal writing as integral to an understanding of her broader practice.