Suzanne Dracius, author and playwright, was born in Fort-de-France and grew up in Sceaux, a suburb of Paris, where she spent her adolescence. She later returned to Martinique, where she now resides. A writer and former professor of Classics graduate of the Sorbonne, both in France and also at the Université Antilles-Guyane, Suzanne Dracius is the author of novels, short stories, poetry and plays. In 1989, she published her first novel, L’autre qui danse, finalist for the First Novel Award (Seghers ; Editions du Rocher 2007) ; English translation in 2018, The Dancing Other, by Nancy Naomi Carlson and Catherine Kellogg, Seagull Books (Calcutta), The University of Chicago Press (USA), “Book of the Month for January 2021”.
Dracius’s two short stories have been anthologized in American classroom collections of literature in French from beyond l’Hexagone (Diversité, la nouvelle francophone, publisher : Houghton-Mifflin, Boston, 1995 and 2000). Her stories, which feature strong, rebellious women characters, have been published in her expanded collection of stories, Rue Monte au Ciel, Coup de Cœur FNAC (Desnel Press, Fort-de-France, Martinique, 2003 ; English translation by James Davis Climb to the Sky, University of Virginia Press - Caraf Books, USA, 2012). In 2005, Dracius published a play, Lumina Sophie dite Surprise (Desnel), who won the Médaille d’Honneur de Schoelcher. In 2008, Dracius published her first collection of poems, Exquise déréliction métisse (Desnel), who won the Fetkann Award (Calazaza’s Delicious Dereliction, translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson, AHCMC Grant Award for this translation (Tupelo Press, USA, 2015), in 2014 Déictique féminitude insulaire (Idem), and in 2016 Scripta manent.

"The new book by the flamboyant Martinique writer Suzanne Dracius has just been published. Entitled Scripta manent ("The writings remain", in Latin), the book is an energetic ode to life and hope in a martyred world. "Scripta manent" –The writings remain– and those of Suzanne Dracius go straight to the heart and soul. (Philippe Triay - la1ere.francetvinfo.fr). In 2018, Suzanne Dracius coordinated the bilingual French/Italian anthology Nourritures néohumanistes / Nutrimenti neoumanisti on the theme of exile, migrants and wandering.
The only woman in the Top 10 of the "10 Martinican writers who have made their mark on the history of literature" and "contributed to making Martinique’s literature shine throughout the world", No. 6 among the "ten authors who cannot be ignored in the Martinican cultural landscape" (Courrier des Afriques), named first among the "women writers of the West Indies and Guyana who offer us texts of great beauty, having as their primary concern what we might call "good writing", as can be seen in Suzanne DRACIUS" (Montray Kréyol), "undeniably one of the great voices of literature from the French West Indies" (Cultures Sud/TV5 Monde), "undeniably one of the most important female voices of the West Indies" (The French Review, USA).
Defining herself by the Creole word "kalazaza", which designates "a half-breed of white and light-skinned black", she has made the fight against all kinds of racial, sexual or social discrimination the issue and the subject of her writing : "Suzanne Dracius is to French-language literature what Rosa Parks is to the civil rights movement in the United States, a storyteller with a pen of affront and slingshot" (A. Baibeche, Romanitas, Universidad de Puerto Rico), analysed in the collective work Métissages et marronnages dans l’œuvre de Suzanne Dracius (éditions L’Harmattan, 2009) coordinated by Professor Yolande A. Helm of Ohio University (articles by various scholars from the United States, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, etc.).
In 1995, Dracius stayed in the USA as a Visiting Professor, lecturing about her own books during one semester at the University of Georgia, and in 2006, at Ohio University during the Spring Quarter. In 2009, Dracius is invited to a writer’s residency at Cove Park (Scotland). In 2010, Dracius won a Prix de la Société des Poètes français (Prize of the Society of the French Poets) for its whole work, and in 2019, the Prix européen francophone Virgile - Senghor. Dracius is FFRI (France-Florida Research Institute) Visiting Professor in February 2012. In October 2022, Dracius won the French & Friends Award Literature in Washington.