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About Zee Edgell 
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By: Tiffany Cohill
Tcohill@Hotmail.com

Zelma I. Edgell, known to many as Zee, is a black Creole author from Belize.  She is married and is the mother of two children, a son and a daughter. Novels written by Mrs. Edgell are set throughout various time periods in the land in which she was raised and educated, Belize. Historical events, universal themes, struggles specific to the Belizean society, and strong, women protagonists are all characteristics that appear in her work.

“One of the easiest choices I had to make was in choosing to write about Belize and its development, because I believe that the more we understand about the cultural forces that shape our characters, the more we can understand ourselves and each other.” (Zee Edgell)

Working through the characters, Mrs. Edgell is able to capture the essence
of Belize and lore the reader into the hearts of its cities.

Zelma I. Edgell: Belizean Author (1940- )

Zee Edgell was born on October 21, 1940 in Belize City, Belize.  In 1965 she received her diploma in journalism from the school of modern language, at the Polytechnic of Central London.  After receiving this diploma she continued  her education at the University of the West Indies.   One of her first jobs was as a trainee journalist for the "Daily Gleaner" in Kingston, Jamaica.  She was employed there from 1959-1962. In 1966 Edgell became the editor of a monthly newspaper called "The Reporter."  She has also taught on the high school level from 1966-1968 and from 1980-1981 at St. Catherine Academy in Belize City, Belize.  In the spring of 1993 Mrs. Edgell served as a visiting-writer-in-residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.  During the fall of 1993 she was hired as an Assistant Professor for the Department of English at Kent State University in Ohio, where she is currently employed.

Zee Edgell has been an active member within the government of her native land as well as organizations associated with women's affairs.  In 1981 she was appointed Director of the Women’s Bureau in Belize.  Five years later she was made the Director of the Department of Women’s Affairs.   During the years of 1978-1980 Edgell worked as a secretary to the Governing Board for Concerned Women for family Planning.  She was also the vice president of the YWCA in Enugui, Nigeria. From 1984-1985 she served as an UNICEF Consultant to the Somali Women’s Democratic Organization.
            
Currently Mrs. Edgell has written three novels.  "Beka Lamb" was the first novel that was published by this author in 1982.  It won the Fawcett Society Book Prize in 1983 and was the first novel published by a Belizean writer to be internationally circulated. Many people viewed her second novel, "In Times Like These", published in 1991 to be a sequel to Beka Lamb. Her third novel, "Festival of San Joaquin", was published in 1997.  This novel differed greatly compared to the two novels that she had written previously. Instead of writing in the third person restricted, Mrs. Edgell wrote form the first person point of view.  She also challenged her writing techniques by writing about a subject outside of her direct personal experience and writing from the perspective of a woman of a different ethnic group.  This novel was very important to her development as a writer because it gave rise to her goals of writing novels that reflect all of the cultures and ethnic groups in Belize.  The next novel to be written by this Belizean author is going to be very different from the three already published.  The protagonist of this novel will be an under privileged, black Creole boy.  As of now the working title of this novel will be "Cobbo Nathaniel Jones, a.k.a. Raindrops."