Sharon Maas

Biography

Maas was born in Georgetown, Guyana. She came from a prominently political family of Dutch, Amerindian and Afro-Caribbean descent. Her mother was one of Guyana's earliest feminists, human rights activists and consumer advocates; her father was Press Secretary to the Marxist opposition leader and later President of Guyana, Dr Cheddi Jagan.

She was educated in Guyana and England. After leaving school she worked as a trainee reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown, Guyana. She later wrote feature articles for the Sunday Chronicle as a staff journalist.

In 1973 she travelled overland to India via England, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After two years in India she moved to Germany. She now divides her time between England and Germany with her husband and two children.

She has written four novels: Of Marriageable Age, Peacocks Dancing, The Speech of Angels The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q and Sons of Gods. Her first three novels focus substantially on their respective protagonists' coming-of-age experience and struggle to find their own, unique identity and place in life ("Bildungsroman"), and are chiefly set against Indian and Guyanese backgrounds, though other countries (most notably Great Britain and Germany) feature prominently as well. Her fourth book, Sons of Gods is a retelling of the Mahabharata. In 2014 she signed with the UK digital publisher Bookouture, which re-published Of Marriageable Age in May 2014 and a new work, The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q, in January 2015. Her work has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Danish and Polish.

Publications