Clarisse Baleja Saïdi

Clarisse Baleja Saïdi is a writer and an academic. Of Rwandan and Congolese descent, she was raised in Côte d’Ivoire, and has lived in the U.S., in Tunisia, in Tanzania, and in Canada. Baleja is the recipient of support from The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Callaloo, Willipa Bay, the Vermont Studio Center, La Napoule Art Foundation, The Whiting Foundation, and more. She holds an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where she received Hopwood Awards for her fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and drama.

Clarisse was a DD mentee from the 2011 short form program.