This is a quote from the book Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor.
Quote by Flannery O’Connor, “I like his eyes. They don’t look like they see what he’s looking at but they keep on looking.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Wise Blood – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Flannery O’Connor’s haunting first novel of faith, false prophets, and redemptive wisdom
Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor’s astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his inborn, desperate fate. He falls under the spell of a blind street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Sabbath Lily. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Motes founds the Church Without Christ, but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with wise blood, who leads him to a mummified holy child and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Motes’s existential struggles. This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdom gives us one of the most riveting characters in American fiction.
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in learning more about the history of women’s movements and gaining tools to think critically about how society is shaped by the patriarchy?
Here are five nonfiction books considered classic feminist texts from the 80’s and 90’s. They each had a considerable impact on the women’s movement and continued to be both relevant and heavily studied. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
It’s important to note that these books are primarily focused on the women’s movements in Western societies (including North America and the UK).
Also, I’m always looking to diversify my reading. If you have any suggestions that discuss women’s rights and movements from other parts of the world, please share them below!
Importance: One of the first intersectional analyses of gender, race and class
This book discusses the interaction of gender, race and class, with an emphasis on the experiences of Black Women.
It clarifies aspects of US history that you may not have heard about, spanning the time period from the slave trade to modern women’s rights movements.
This book radically shifted how I understood the history of the women’s movements, especially the suffragette movement. I feel like it gave me so much more nuance to the history.
Summary (from Goodreads):
From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women.
“Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard.” —The New York Times
Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.
In this book, bell hooks discusses how stereotypes from slavery are still very influential in today’s world.
bell hooks is considered a feminist theory scholar, and this book has been considered groundbreaking in feminist theory as it discussed the longterm impacts from slavery that are still felt today.
This book has no footnotes in it. bell hooks said it was to make it more accessible and less scholarly, but it has also been criticized for not sharing her sources.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A groundbreaking work of feminist history and theory analyzing the complex relations between various forms of oppression. Ain’t I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women’s movement, and black women’s involvement with feminism.
Importance: A groundbreaking impact on contemporary feminist theories, including intersectionality
This is a collection of essays, with “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” likely being the most well known.
The essays showcase Lorde’s philosophical thought and reasoning, especially highlighting oppressions as both complex and interconnected. Her essays are considered a significant contribution to critical social theory.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A collection of fifteen essays written between 1976 and 1984 gives clear voice to Audre Lorde’s literary and philosophical personae. These essays explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde’s intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference—difference according to sex, race, and economic status. The title Sister Outsider finds its source in her poetry collection The Black Unicorn (1978). These poems and the essays in Sister Outsider stress Lorde’s oft-stated theme of continuity, particularly of the geographical and intellectual link between Dahomey, Africa, and her emerging self.
Importance: Redefined the relationship between beauty and female identity
The Beauty Myth focuses on how beauty is used as a distraction and continues the subjugation of women.
As women’s power in society has increased, so has the pressure from media to achieve unrealistic beauty standards.
Beauty is both a way to distract women from their desire for equal rights, while simultaneously providing a way for everyone (men and women) to judge women on their personal appearance.
Summary (from Goodreads):
The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today’s world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women’s movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It’s the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of “the flawless beauty.”
This book originated as an article that Faludi wrote in response to a 1986 Newsweek cover story about the so-called “man shortage” and the “statistic” that women over 30 were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than marry.
Newsweek reported that the “statistic” came from a Harvard-Yale marriage study. It got tremendous coverage and was widely believed to be true. You’ll even see it referenced (as a joke) in the movie Sleepless in Seattle! But the statistic didn’t hold up to be true and the Harvard-Yale team later retracted the statistics.
You can hear Susan Faludi talk more about it in an interview here.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women’s Rights
“Opting-out,” “security moms,” “desperate housewives,” “the new baby fever”—the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is back in a fifteenth anniversary edition, with a new preface by the author that brings backlash consciousness up to date.
When it was first published, Backlash made headlines for puncturing such favorite media myths as the “infertility epidemic” and the “man shortage,” myths that defied statistical realities. These willfully fictitious media campaigns added up to an antifeminist backlash. Whatever progress feminism has recently made, Faludi’s words today seem prophetic. The media still love stories about stay-at-home moms and the “dangers” of women’s career ambitions; the glass ceiling is still low; women are still punished for wanting to succeed; basic reproductive rights are still hanging by a thread. The backlash clearly exists.
With passion and precision, Faludi shows in her new preface how the creators of commercial culture distort feminist concepts to sell products while selling women downstream, how the feminist ethic of economic independence is twisted into the consumer ethic of buying power, and how the feminist quest for self-determination is warped into a self-centered quest for self-improvement.
Backlash is a classic of feminism, an alarm bell for women of every generation, reminding us of the dangers that we still face.
Personally, I think these most, if not, all of these books are life changing. They can provide significant perspective shifts and can help you think more critically about your experiences.
You may not agree with everything in the books, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t gain something from them. For instance, Angela Davis was an ardent supporter of the communist party in the 80’s and part of the book focuses heavily on communism. Whatever your feelings about communism (and people tend to feel quite strongly about it – thanks Cold War!), that shouldn’t negate or affect what you can learn from the rest of the book.
If you’ve read any of these, I would love to know what you think of them! Please feel free to share a comment below with your thoughts.
If you have suggestions for books that focus on women’s movements from elsewhere around the world, please let me know in a comment below!
This is an excerpt from the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
I want a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens where Papa works. We go on Sundays, Papa’s day off. I used to go. I don’t anymore. You don’t like to go out with us, Papa says. Getting too old? Getting too stuck-up, says Nenny. I don’t tell them I am ashamed—all of us staring out the window like the hungry. I am tired of looking at what we can’t have. When we win the lottery…Mama begins, and then I stop listening.
People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth. They don’t look down at all except to be content to live on hills. They have nothing to do with last week’s garbage or fear of rats. Night comes. Nothing wakes them but the wind
One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask Can I come in? I’ll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house.
Some days after dinner guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble.
Rats? they’ll ask.
Bums, I’ll say, and I’ll be happy.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The House on Mango Street – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.
Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
This is a quote from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.
Quote by James Baldwin, “I could not share the white man’s vision of himself for the very good reason that white men in America do not behave toward black men the way they behave toward each other.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The Fire Next Time – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.
Are you hoping to read more classics this year? Here are some suggestions for Black History month!
I wanted to highlight classics that we don’t hear about as much so that you can read from diverse perspectives. Some of these may be new to you, and some might not.
These five classics are from Black Americans from a variety of genres. All of these are more modern classics, having been written between the years of 1920-1960.
Storygraph Categories: fiction, classics, poetry, short stories, challenging, reflective, slow-paced
100 years since it’s been published!
Importance: From the Harlem Renaissance
Summary (from Goodreads):
A literary masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance, Cane is a powerful work of innovative fiction evoking black life in the South. The sketches, poems, and stories of black rural and urban life that make up Cane are rich in imagery. Visions of smoke, sugarcane, dusk, and flame permeate the Southern landscape: the Northern world is pictured as a harsher reality of asphalt streets. Impressionistic, sometimes surrealistic, the pieces are redolent of nature and Africa, with sensuous appeals to eye and ear.
Importance: Focuses on mixed-race individuals and racial passing (such as passing as white)
Summary (edited from Goodreads):
Nella Larsen’s fascinating exploration of race and identity.
Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past–even hiding the truth from her racist husband.
Clare finds herself drawn to Irene’s sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself–and her deception–into every part of Irene’s stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen’s brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to “pass,” is as timely as ever.
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the ’30s. Janie’s quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Importance: The first novel by an Black American woman to sell more than a million copies
Summary (from Goodreads):
The Street tells the poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s. Originally published in 1946 and hailed by critics as a masterwork, The Street was Ann Petry’s first novel, a beloved bestseller with more than a million copies in print. Its haunting tale still resonates today.
Importance: The first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award
Summary (from Storygraph):
First produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and hailed as a watershed in American drama. Not only a pioneering work by an African-American playwright—Lorraine Hansberry’s play was also a radically new representation of black life, resolutely authentic, fiercely unsentimental, and unflinching in its vision of what happens to people whose dreams are constantly deferred.
In her portrait of an embattled Chicago family, Hansberry anticipated issues that range from generational clashes to the civil rights and women’s movements. She also posed the essential questions—about identity, justice, and moral responsibility—at the heart of these great struggles. The result is an American classic.
As cliche as it may be, Black History is not only for the month of February. I would encourage you to intentionally seek out authors from diverse backgrounds, including Black Americans and other Black individuals from around the world.
This is just a small list, but as you intentionally pursue a diverse reading list, you’ll find more and more books to read. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, so just start small by picking out a few books to incorporate throughout the year.
Personally, I think the most important part is to be intentional about who and what you’re reading. Take time to notice what you’ve read recently and see who the authors and characters are. Then start to incorporate other perspectives to broaden your reading experience.
This is an excerpt from the book A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
Mama: Ruth Younger, what’s the matter with you today? You look like you could fall over right there.
Ruth: I’m tired
Mama: Then you better stay home from work today.
Ruth: I can’t stay home. She’d be calling up the agency and screaming at them, “My girl didn’t come in today—send me somebody! My girl didn’t come in!” Oh, she just have a fit…
Mama: Well, let her have it. I’ll just call her up and say you got the flu—
Ruth: (laughing) Why the flu?
Mama: ‘Cause it sounds respectable to ‘em. Something white people get, too. They know ‘bout the flu. Otherwise they think you been cut up or something when you tell ‘em you sick.
Ruth: I got to go in. We need the money.
Mama: Somebody would of thought my children done all but starved to death the way they talk about money here late. Child, we got a great big old check coming tomorrow.
Ruth: (Sincerely, but also self-righteously) Now that’s your money. It ain’t got nothing to do with me. We all feel like that—Walter and Bennie and me—even Travis.
Mama: (Thoughtfully, and suddenly very far away) Ten thousand dollars—
Ruth: Sure is wonderful.
Mama: Ten thousand dollars.
Ruth: You know what you should do, Miss Lena? You should take yourself a trip somewhere. To Europe or South America or someplace—
Mama: (Throwing up her hands at the thought) Oh, child!
Ruth: I’m serious. Just pack up and leave! Go on away and enjoy yourself some. Forget about the family and have yourself a ball for once in your life—
Mama: (Drily) You sound like I’m just about ready to die. Who’d go with me? What I look like wandering ‘round Europe by myself?
Ruth: Shoot—these here rich white women do it all the time. They don’t think nothing of packing up they suitcases and piling on one of them big steamships and—swoosh!—they gone, child.
Mama: Something always told me I wasn’t no rich white woman.
Ruth: Well—what are you going to do with it then?
Mama: I ain’t rightly decided. (Thinking. She speaks now with emphasis) Some of it got to be put away for Beneatha and her schoolin’—and ain’t nothing going to touch that part of it. Nothing. (She waits several seconds, trying to make up her mind about something, and looks at Ruth a little tentatively before going on) Been thinking that we maybe could meet the notes on a little old two-story somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play in the summertime, if we use part of the insurance for a down payment and everybody kind of pitch in. I could maybe take on a little day work again, few days a week—
Ruth: (Studying her mother-in-law furtively and concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage without seeming to) Well, Lord knows we’ve put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now…
Mama: (Looking up at the words “rat trap” and then looking around and leaning back and sighing—in a suddenly reflective mood—) “Rat trap”—yes, that’s all it is. (Smiling) I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks and wasn’t planning on living here no more than a year. (She shakes her head at the dissolved dream) We was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know, and buy a little place out in Morgan Park. We had even picked out the house. (Chuckling a little) Looks right dumpy today. But Lord, child, you should know all the dreams I had ‘bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back— (She waits and stops smiling) And didn’t none of it happen.
(Dropping her hands in a futile gesture)
Ruth: (Keeps her head down, ironing) Yes, life can be a barrel of disappointments, sometimes.
As a bonus, let me share with you the poem that the name of the play references. It’s a poem from Langston Hughes and is included in the book before the play starts.
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes
Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
A Raisin in the Sun – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
“Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen on the stage,” observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.
Indeed Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America–and changed American theater forever. The play’s title comes from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” which warns that a dream deferred might “dry up/like a raisin in the sun.”
“The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun,” said The New York Times. “It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic.” This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry’s landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.
This is a quote from the book A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
Quote by Lorraine Hansberry, “Just sit awhile and think…Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”
Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
A Raisin in the Sun – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
“Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen on the stage,” observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.
Indeed Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America–and changed American theater forever. The play’s title comes from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem,” which warns that a dream deferred might “dry up/like a raisin in the sun.”
“The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun,” said The New York Times. “It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic.” This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry’s landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.
This is an excerpt from the book Selected Words of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde, from the essay Poetry is Not a Luxury.
The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are—until the poem—nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.
As we learn to bear the intimacy of scrutiny and to flourish within it, as we learn to use the products of that scrutiny for power within our living, those fears which rule our lives and form our silences begin to lose their control over us.
For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, “beautiful/and tough as chestnut/stanchions against (y)our nightmare of weakness/” and of impotence.
These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The women’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.
When we view living in the european mode only as a problem to be solved, we rely solely upon our ideas to make us free, for those were what the white fathers told us were precious.
But as we come more into touch with our own ancient, non-european consciousness of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted with, we learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore lasting action comes.
At this point in time, I believe that women carry within ourselves the possibility for fusion of these two approaches to necessary for survival, and we come closest to this combination in our poetry. I speak here of poetry as a revelatory distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean—in order to cover a desperate wish for imagination without insight.
For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas. They become a safe-house for that difference so necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action. Right now, I could name at least ten ideas I would have found intolerable or incomprehensible and frightening, except as they came after dreams and poems. This is not idle fantasy, but a disciplined attention to the true meaning of “it feels right to me.” We can train ourselves to respect our feelings and to transpose them into a language so they can be shared. And where that language does not exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.
Possibility is neither forever nor instant. It is not easy to sustain belief in its efficacy. We can sometimes work long and hard to establish on beachhead of real resistance to the deaths we are expected to live, only to have that beachhead assaulted or threatened by those canards we have been socialized to fear, or by the withdrawal of those approvals that we have been warned to seek for safety. Women see ourselves diminished or softened by the falsely benign accusations of childishness, of nonuniversality, of changeability, of sensuality. And who asks the question: Am I altering your aura, your ideas, your dreams, or am I merely moving you to temporary and reactive action? And even though the latter is no mean task, it is one that must be seen within the context of a need for true alteration of the very foundations of our lives.
The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us—the poet—whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary demand, the implementation of that freedom
Have you read this book or this essay by Audre Lorde? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The Selected Works of Audre Lorde – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
A definitive selection of Audre Lorde’s “intelligent, fierce, powerful, sensual, provocative, indelible” (Roxane Gay) prose and poetry, for a new generation of readers.
Self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems—selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay.
Are you hoping to read more classics this year? Here are some suggestions for Black History month, specifically from women!
I wanted to highlight classics that we don’t hear about as much so that you can read from diverse perspectives. I think it’s important to read from a variety of sources.
These five classics are from Black American women and cover various genres, from memoirs/autobiographies to poetry and fiction. All of these are older classics, having been written before the year 1900.
This is a list of five older classics from Black American authors to read for Black History Month:
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley (1773) First professional Black American woman poet in America
The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts (written around 1853-1861) Only novel by a fugitive slave woman, however the manuscript was not published until 2002
Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson (1859) This was long considered the first novel published by a Black American woman in North America, but The Bondwoman’s Narrative may have been written a few years earlier.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861) Autobiography of a fugitive slave
Iola Leroy by Frances Watkins Harper (1892) One of the first novels published by a Black American woman
I’ve listed them started from the oldest to the most recent. Keep reading to find out more about each one.
Importance: First professional Black American woman poet in America
Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa, but was kidnapped and sold to the Wheatley family in Boston when she was seven or eight. In addition to her domestic obligations, the Wheatley family did provide her with an extensive education and encouraged her to pursue writing. However, she was not emancipated/manumitted (set free) from the family until after she published her book of poetry.
Phillis Wheatley was the first Black American woman to publish poetry, and considered the first to make a living from her writing. Despite having to be interviewed by 18 prominent men in Boston to prove that she wrote her own poetry, no one in the Americas was willing to publish her poetry. She was finally able to publish this collection of poetry in London in 1773.
Despite international recognition, she was unable to find anyone to publish any further volumes of poetry. She was able to publish some poetry in pamphlets and newspapers, but only in limited amounts. Unfortunately, she ended up dying in abject poverty, with many of her poems lost to history.
This moving collection of poems by Phillis Wheatley is intended to inspire Christians and tribute various believers who had recently been deceased. Published in 1773, this collection brings together many of Wheatley’s finest writings addressed to figures of the day. She writes evocative verse to academic establishments, military officers and even the King of England, with other verses discussing various subjects in verse form, offering condolences and verse commemorating recent events, or the death of a recent loved one.
Recognized as one of the first black poets to be widely appreciated in the Western world, Phillis Wheatley was a devoted Christian whose talent with the English language impressed and awed her peers. Wheatley took plenty of influence from past works of poetry, such as Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Several of the poems in this collection mention or allude to such masterpieces, the voracious absorption of which helped Phillis Wheatley to learn and hone her creative abilities.
Importance: Only novel by a fugitive slave woman, however the manuscript was not published until 2002
The Bondwoman’s Narrative wasn’t published until 2002. The manuscript was bought by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 2001, who then researched, verified, and authenticated the source of the manuscript. Based on his research, he was able to confirm it was written by a Black woman (and fugitive slave) before 1861.
In order to identify the author of this manuscript, extensive efforts were needed by historians. They were finally able to identify Hannah Bond (Hannah Craft was her pen name) as the author. She was enslaved by the Wheeler family in North Carolina until she was able to escape in 1857 and settle in New Jersey.
Summary (from Storygraph):
Possibly the first novel written by a black woman slave, this work is both a historically important literary event and a gripping autobiographical story in its own right.
When her master is betrothed to a woman who conceals a tragic secret, Hannah Crafts, a young slave on a wealthy North Carolina plantation, runs away in a bid for her freedom up North. Pursued by slave hunters, imprisoned by a mysterious and cruel captor, held by sympathetic strangers, and forced to serve a demanding new mistress, she finally makes her way to freedom in New Jersey. Her compelling story provides a fascinating view of American life in the mid-1800s and the literary conventions of the time. Written in the 1850’s by a runaway slave, THE BONDSWOMAN’S NARRATIVE is a provocative literary landmark and a significant historical event that will captivate a diverse audience.
Importance: This was long considered the first novel published by a Black American woman in North America, but The Bondwoman’s Narrative may have been written a few years earlier.
An autobiographical novel written by a free person of colour in New Hampshire.
Harriet E. Wilson was the first Black American to publish a novel on the North American continent. It was published anonymously in Boston, Massachusetts in 1859.
Harriet was orphaned as a young child, and forced into indentured servitude until the age of 18. Indentured servitude was a common way to deal with orphans, as they were provided necessities (food, boarding, etc.) in return for their labour. After she turned 18, she worked as a seamstress, housekeeper, and even a lecturer for the Spiritualist circles. She often struggled to make a living, and there’s no evidence she wrote anything else for publication.
Some scholars believe that this novel didn’t get much support from abolitionists because it didn’t follow the typical slave narrative and showed that even in the free north Blacks were still oppressed and suffered from racism.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Our Nig is the tale of a mixed-race girl, Frado, abandoned by her white mother after the death of the child’s black father. Frado becomes the servant of the Bellmonts, a lower-middle-class white family in the free North, while slavery is still legal in the South, and suffers numerous abuses in their household. Frado’s story is a tragic one; having left the Bellmonts, she eventually marries a black fugitive slave, who later abandons her.
An autobiography by Harriet Jacobs, who was both a mother and a fugitive slave. Harriet published the autobiography under the pseudonym Linda Brent.
The book covers Harriet’s life both as a slave and how she gained freedom for herself and her children. Harriet discusses gender-related issues for women slaves, as they faced sexual abuse and tremendous obstacles when taking care of their children, including the constant threat of them being sold away.
Harriet also directly appealed to white women to truly comprehend the horrors of slavery and support all women based on a uniting sisterhood. The book is considered a feminist text as it highlights the sexual abuse that was used as a tool of the white patriarchy, shows women supporting other women despite a difference in race and class, and brought the topic of sexual abuse of slaves into public discussions of slavery.
Summary (from Storygraph & Goodreads):
The true story of an individual’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation, and freedom, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains among the few extant slave narratives written by a woman. This autobiographical account chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.
Written and published in 1861 after Jacobs’ harrowing escape from a vile and predatory master, the memoir delivers a powerful and unflinching portrayal of the abuses and hypocrisy of the master-slave relationship. Jacobs writes frankly of the horrors she suffered as a slave, her eventual escape after several unsuccessful attempts, and her seven years in self-imposed exile, hiding in a coffin-like “garret” attached to her grandmother’s porch.
A rare firsthand account of a courageous woman’s determination and endurance, this inspirational story also represents a valuable historical record of the continuing battle for freedom and the preservation of family.
Importance: One of the first novels published by an Black American woman
Frances Watkins Harper was one of the first Black woman to publish a book in the USA. She also had significant literary success. Her second book of poems, “Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects” in 1854, was considered a commercial success. She also published a short story, “The Two Offers”, in the The Anglo-African Newspaper, making history as the first short story published by a Black woman.
She was born free in Baltimore, Maryland in 1825 when Maryland was still a slave state. Both her parents died when she was three, and she was raised by her maternal aunt and uncle. Her uncle was a civil rights activist and abolitionist, having a huge impact on Frances’ life and work.
In addition to her writing, Frances was an American abolitionist, suffragist, activist, and public lecturer. She took an intersectional approach to her activism, looking at both African American civil rights and women’s rights.
Iola Leroy was published in 1892 when Frances was 67. In the novel, Frances dealt with many of the serious social issues of the time, including women’s education, passing as a mixed-race individual, reconstruction, abolition and more.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A landmark account of the African American experience during the Civil War and its aftermath.
First published in 1892, this stirring novel by the great writer and activist Frances Harper tells the story of the young daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter who travels to the North to attend school, only to be sold into slavery in the South when it is discovered that she has Negro blood. After she is freed by the Union army, she works to reunify her family and embrace her heritage, committing herself to improving the conditions for blacks in America.
Through her fascinating characters-including Iola’s brother, who fights at the front in a colored regiment-Harper weaves a vibrant and provocative chronicle of the Civil War and its consequences through African American eyes in this critical contribution to the nation’s literature.
I personally think it’s important to read from different time periods, just as it’s important to read from different countries. History is part of who we are as the human race, it has shaped us into who we are now.
But too often the literature promoted from those eras are only from certain perspectives (think old white men, and sometimes old white women). It makes sense that those were the individuals valued as literary contributors. They were typically the ones who were respected and resonated with individuals who held socioeconomic and political power (those of similar demographics).
Reading, writing, and literature were considered elite and superfluous for most individuals, and thus access was restricted. But the restricted access makes these works of art from other perspectives so much more valuable. These written works were produced against all odds and have still survived!
It makes me so sad to think of all the incredible works of art that were lost to history because people didn’t have access to time, resources, or education to develop and refine their skills. Or even just those that were written but never shared or preserved due to limited social or literary support, like the many poems of Phillis Wheatley that never got published.
Anyways, all that to say, these perspectives are incredibly valuable and I believe that reading classics should include a wide range of perspectives.
This is a quote from the book Memorial by Bryan Washington.
Quote by Bryan Washington, “It wasn’t like I didn’t know what was happening, or that I wanted us to be over, but it just felt like gravity—like I was slowly sinking into something that would eventually happen anyway and I didn’t know how to stop it or turn it around or what.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Memorial – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
A funny, sexy, profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship and the limits of love.
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black day care teacher, and they’ve been together for a few years — good years — but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. There’s the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.
But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike’s immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.
Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they’ve ever known. And just maybe they’ll all be okay in the end. Memorial is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.
