Louise Wondel

(Paramaribo, 1971) Her Aukan mother and Saamaka father are descendants of the Marrons, Africans that refused to accept slavery and withdrew in the backwoods. Louise Wondel grew up with these notions of freedom. She is part of the generation that was raised in a western, intellectual fashion; not just in the traditional way. As a student of sociology in Surinam, and someone who researches the African-Surinam culture, Louise Wondel knows better than anyone what the state of her country and people is. Her poems are an accusation against the suppression of the Marrons, and against the estrangement that city life brought about in their culture, norms and values.