Free Enterprise

Michelle Carla Cliff was born in Kingston, Jamaica on November 2, 1946. She received a bachelor's degree in European history from Wagner College in 1969. She briefly worked as a researcher at Time-Life Books and as a production editor at W. W. Norton. At the University of London, she studied art at the Warburg Institute and received a master of philosophy degree in 1974 after writing a thesis on the Italian Renaissance. She returned to Norton and worked as a production editor for books on history, women's studies, and politics. Her first book, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise, was published in 1980. Her other books included The Land of Look Behind: Prose and Poetry, The Store of a Million Items, and If I Could Write This in Fire. Her first novel, Abeng, was published in 1984. Her other novels include No Telephone to Heaven, Free Enterprise: A Novel of Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Into the Interior. She died from liver failure on June 12, 2016 at the age of 69.