Meiling Jin

Today, Meiling Jin's topics and style of writing reflect her identity as a Chinese Caribbean author. However, it wasn't until around 2012 that she began identifying and marketing her work as a Chinese Caribbean author. Prior to that she simply referred to herself as a Caribbean author. Meiling Jin draws inspiration for her works from a range of different sources including Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. Jin also incorporates her many different cultural experiences in her work. She reasons why she writes and how poetry is remembered by so many by the iconic poets of the past several centuries. She expressed, "For me, writing is healing. It is also communicating. But above all, it's powerful. When I think of the mass media and the mausoleum of dead white poets, who have such a hold on people, I feel diminished. It's if, I am hurling myself against an enormous concrete wall; the only dent being my head the mausoleum of dead white poets, who have such a hold on people, I feel diminished."

Song of the Boatwoman, published in November 1996, is a collection of short stories. These short stories have a variety of scenes including: "London, China, California, Malaysia [and] the Caribbean". Jin draws upon her Guyanese-Chinese roots as inspiration for a number of the poems in this compilation. She uses various unique writing techniques and styles to thoroughly entertain her readers. Furthermore, each of these stories, whether regarding gender, sexual orientation, or race, manifest into the overall representation of the Boatwoman.

In 1956, Meiling Jin was born in Guyana to parents of Chinese ancestry. She has one sibling, a twin sister. Despite her parents' background, Jin did not visit China for the first time until 1981. For the first eight years of her life, Meiling Jin lived and was raised in Guyana. In June 1964 Jin's family fled the country due to the unstable politics and moved to London, England. Jin's family left Guyana two years before it achieved independence within the Commonwealth on 26 May 1966. Meiling Jin's father had travelled first, and the rest of her family followed. It was in London that Jin found her love for literature.

Meiling Jin (born 1956) is a Guyanese author, radio broadcaster, playwright, and filmmaker who currently lives in London, England.