Biography
Njelle (Njara) Hamilton
Dr. Hamilton is Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Virginia. The author of Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel (Rutgers 2019), Hamilton specializes in 20th and 21st century Caribbean literary and cultural studies, with particular focus on narrative theory and fiction craft. Her essays on sound studies, trauma theory, and the physics of time have appeared in Anthurium, Journal of West Indian Literature, and Small Axe.
Njelle is also a singer, songwriter, and multi-genre storyteller, performing and publishing as Njara del Mar. Her fiction has appeared in Centripetal, Caribbean in Transit, and Pree, and has won the support of fellowships and residencies from Oxbelly, Tin House, Pree, and Anaphora Arts.
She is currently working on several projects that interweave scholarship and creative writing: a nonfiction book about Caribbean time-travel narratives; a collection of personal essays on music and memory; and a novel inspired by reggae and dub.