Anna Livia (born Anna Livia Julian Brawn; 13 November 1955 – 5 August 2007) was a lesbian feminist author and linguist, well known for her fiction and non-fiction regarding sexuality. From 1999 until shortly before the time of her death she was a member of staff at University of California, Berkeley.^[1][2]

Anna Livia was born on 13 November 1955, in Dublin, Ireland. She was born to Patrick St. John, a writer and film maker, and Dympna Brawn, a poet, and had two brothers and a sister. She was named after Julian of Norwich and Anna Livia Plurabelle, the character from James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake.^[3][4]

The family moved to Luanshya, Zambia in 1960, and then to Swaziland where she attended the Waterford Kamhlaba boarding school in Mbabane.^[5] In 1970, they moved to the United Kingdom. Livia attended the Rosa Bassett School in South London for her primary and secondary education.

Livia graduated from the University College London in 1979 with a Bachelors of Arts in French with a minor in Italian.^[6] She also received a post-graduate certificate in education from UCL in 1981.

In 1999, she had twins with her partner Jeannie Witkin; they eventually split up but continued to co-parent their children. At the time of her death, Livia's partner was Patti Roberts.^[5]

In the 1980s, she taught French and English at the University of Avignon. She was a co-director of the Feminist Press in London from 1982–1989. From 1983–1990, she was an editor for Onlywomen Press as well as their periodical, Gossip, from 1984–1988. From 1994–2002, she edited for the Lesbian Review of Books.

In 1995, she received her doctorate in French linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley.^[3] She taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1995 to 1998.^[7] She began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1999, which she continued to do until her death. She published her revised PhD thesis, Pronoun Envy (2000), in which she "developed a feminist analysis of the use of pronouns,"^[5] in English and French writing. From 2001–2002, she taught as a visiting lecturer at Mills College.^[7]

Three of Livia's books were nominated for Lambda Literary Awards for Lesbian Fiction. Incidents Involving Mirth was nominated in 1990, Minimax in 1991, and Bruised Fruit in 1999.^[11][12][13] She won a Vermont Booksellers Association Special Merit Award for translation.^[3]

• Galst, Liz. "Searching for vampires in the netherworld: novelist Anna Livia has a penchant for supernatural lesbians." The Advocate, 3 Dec. 1991, p. 100.