My early exposure to books and literature affected my sense of country, community and culture very positively because the books I read taught me how to write about my country and community as other writers wrote about theirs. As I grew up, my family passed their love of Belize on to my sisters, brothers and me. I knew even as a young girl that I was going to write for the country of Belize.
— Zee Edgell, Bombay Interview
Zee Edgell was born Zelma Inez Tucker in Belize City on October 21, 1940. She later attended Regent Street Polytechnic and then continued her studies at the University of the West Indies.
After working as a schoolteacher and newspaper editor, she became the Director of the Belizean Administration’s Department of Women’s Affairs and has been an educational consultant since 1990. She has worked as a journalist in Jamaica and Belize as well as teaching in Belize and working for various development organizations in Africa and Asia. More recently she has been an associate professor at Kent State University, in the United States.
Beka Lamb (1982), her first novel and the first Belizean work of fiction to attract international notice, parallels the growth to maturity and independence of its female protagonist with the emergence and consolidation of Belize’s sense of national identity. Like its predecessor, Edgell’s second novel, In Times Like These (1991), conflates personal and national themes in its account of a well-educated Belizean woman’s political involvements upon returning to her native country on the eve of Independence.
She was the first Belizean novelist to win the 1982 Fawcett Society Book Prize and gain international recognition (Bromley 10). The Fawcett Society is an Organization based out of London that strives for equal opportunities for women worldwide. Its aim is to benefit and improve women’s lives through changes in society and policies. Edgell also won the Canute Broadherst Prize for her short story “My Uncle Theophilus” in 1999. She is an internationally recognized author. Some of works have been translated into Spanish, Dutch and German.
