Judith Gleason

Judith Illsley Gleason (1929–2012) was an American anthropologist, Africanist, and writer. She published a large number of books dedicated to the Orishas and Yoruba religions more broadly, both in West Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean.^[1] She conducted anthropologic studies in places such as Brazil, Haiti, Mexico, and West Africa.

Gleason was born in 1929 in Pasadena, California. She graduated with a bachelors degree at Radcliffe College, later earning her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.^[2] She taught at Sarah Lawrence College.^[3] She also worked as a consultant for schools and organizations that were starting their African humanities and literature programs.^[2]

In 1970, she wrote a novel, Agõtĩme: Her Legend, centered on an account of Na Agontimé, who offends her husband, who then sells her to slavery in Brazil; she makes a bargain with a vodu (deity), putting her son on the throne of Dahomey and bringing her home.^[4] Her 1971 book Orisha: the gods of Yorubaland, was included in an exhibition for Trinidad and Tobago's Emancipation celebrations at the National Library and Information System (NALIS) in Port of Spain in 2019.^[5]

Gleason died in 2012.^[1] She had 5 children.^[4]

Source:^[6]

• This Africa: Novels by West Africans in English and French (1965)
• Agõtĩme: Her Legend (with Carybé; 1970)
• Orisha: the gods of Yorubaland (1971)
• A recitation of Ifa, oracle of the Yoruba (with Awotunde Aworinde and John Olaniyi Ogundipe; 1973)
• Santería, Bronx (1975)
• Leaf and bone: African praise-poems: an anthology, with commentary (1980)
• Oya. In Praise of an African Goddess (1987)

Source:^[7]

• Where Does Your River Begin? (2004)
• Waterspirit-Carrying Woman (2009)
• Summer Visits Nezahualcoyotl (2009)
• Day and Night Hunting (2009)