杜玛斯1953年出生于南非的开普敦。生活在殖民时代和后殖民时代之间的她见证了随着西欧移民大量涌入所引发的各种冲突。1976年,她搬至荷兰的阿姆斯特丹居住,这一迁居带有自我放逐的意味。杜玛斯选择去阿姆斯特丹而不是纽约,至少有一部分是因为美国的种族关系容易使她重温她所刻意逃离的种族隔离的噩梦。杜玛斯经常谈起她对于“血统”这个 Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1953. Living between the colonial era and the post-colonial era she witnessed the conflicts that erupted with the influx of immigrants from Western Europe. In 1976, she moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where she moved with self-imposed exile. Dumas chose to go to Amsterdam instead of New York, at least in part because her ethnic relations in the United States made it easy for her to relive the nightmare of the apartheid she had deliberately escaped. Dumas often talked about her “blood” this