Ana Rita Santiago
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Ana Rita Santiago | |
|---|---|
| Born | Santo Antonio de Jesus, Bahia, Brazil |
| Occupations | literature professor, writer |
| Employer | Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB) |
| Known for | studies of African and Afro-Brazilian writers |
Ana Rita Santiago is a Brazilian retired associate professor at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB) and professor for the cultural criticism postgraduate programme, at Bahia State University (UNEB). Concentrating her research on literature by black women in Brazil she served as the president of the Association of Black Researchers of Bahia. Following her retirement from university, in 2023 she joined the Brazilian federal Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship as general coordinator in the Sistema Nacional de Promoção da Igualdade Racial (National System for the Promotion of Racial Equality – SINAPIR).[1][2][3]
Santiago was born in Santo Antonio de Jesus, in the eastern part of the state of Bahia, daughter of a single mother who worked in the tobacco industry to support her family. She had three sisters and was known by the family nickname of Rê. She recalled being the only child on her street who could read and the only one of her daughters her mother would allow out of the house at night so that she could attend and read at church meetings. Leaving high school at the age of 17 she worked for ten years before entering the Catholic University of Salvador on a night course. She followed this by studying at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Salvador, Bahia, with a thesis on the novel, Jubiabá, by Jorge Amado, and then moved to UNEB, where she completed a master's degree in education and contemporary studies with research on the educational project of the Asantewaa Quilombo, an organization that she had founded. In 2010 she obtained a PhD. in literature and linguistics from UFBA, with a thesis on Literary Voices of Black Writers from Bahia, having begun to ask herself why she was only reading novels by American black women, such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, and not Brazilian black women. In 2016, she did post-doctoral studies at the Paris Descartes University.[1][2][4]
