Thalia is Dutch-Surinamese and a co-founder of Chaos Press (Uitgeverij Chaos), the only intersectional feminist publishing house in the Netherlands, where she edits and translates (English to Dutch). She also writes and publishes short stories.
She obtained her PhD from the University of St. Andrews, in the departments of Social Anthropology and Modern Languages. Her dissertation focussed on war literature and its influence on contemporary peace activism and remembrance practices in the UK and the US. She holds a BA and MA (research) in Comparative Literary Studies from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. During these degrees she went on exchanges with UC Davis (California, US) and Napoli L’Orientale (Italy).
Her current research project as a postdoc at the University of Amsterdam is entitled Plantation Kinships. It looks at the nature of kin relations between people of the African diaspora in Suriname and the Netherlands whose ancestors were all enslaved at the same plantation. This is done through the analysis of a corpus of Dutch-language Surinamese literature, specifically by Edgar Cairo (1984-2000), and fieldwork in Suriname.
Photo by Tomisin Animashaun