Trinida­di­an-born writer, Rosa Guy, 89, died last Sun­day af­ter a bat­tle with can­cer. Guy, who resided in Man­hat­tan, New York, earned her rep­u­ta­tion as one of the 20th cen­tu­ry's most dis­tin­guished writ­ers for young adults by ad­dress­ing con­tro­ver­sial themes in­clud­ing race, class and sex­u­al­i­ty. The best known was a tril­o­gy of nov­els, The Friends (1973), Ru­by (1976) and Edith Jack­son (1978). The books' in­spi­ra­tion came from Guy's ex­pe­ri­ence as a young im­mi­grant from Trinidad, ad­just­ing to life in New York with lit­tle fi­nan­cial sup­port and no fam­i­ly.

Au­thor of 15 nov­els, Guy treat­ed with key is­sues faced by young black women in­clud­ing class war­fare, preg­nan­cy, post-im­mi­gra­tion ad­just­ment, sex­u­al­i­ty, and the con­fronta­tion­al ties be­tween African-Amer­i­can and West In­di­ans. She is best known for the play Once on This Is­land which was adapt­ed from her 1985 nov­el for adults, My Love, Love; Or, The Peas­ant Girl which was a Caribbean ver­sion of Hans Chris­t­ian An­der­sen's The Lit­tle Mer­maid.

Born on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1925 in Trinidad, Guy's fam­i­ly lat­er moved to Harlem, New York. She at­tend­ed New York Uni­ver­si­ty where she stud­ied writ­ing and the­atre. In 1950, Guy, co-found­ed the Harlem Writer's Guild. She was al­so a mem­ber of a Black na­tion­al­ist lit­er­ary or­gan­i­sa­tion, On Guard for Free­dom. Awards dur­ing her ca­reer in­clude the Coret­ta Scott King Award, The New York Times Out­stand­ing Book of the Year ci­ta­tion, and the Amer­i­can Li­brary As­so­ci­a­tion's Best Book Award.