Dexter Gabriel (born 1971), better known by his pen name Phenderson Djèlí Clark, is an American speculative fiction writer and historian, who is an assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Connecticut.
This pen name, "Djèlí", makes reference to the griots – traditional Western African storytellers, historians and poets.
Dexter Gabriel was born in New York City in 1971, but spent most of his early years living in his parents' original home of Trinidad and Tobago.
[1][2] At age eight, he returned to the United States and lived in Staten Island and Brooklyn before moving to Houston, when he was 12.
[2] Phenderson was his grandfather's name, while Clark was his mother's maiden name; Djèlí refers to West African storytellers, known in French as griots.