Recommendations based on "The Women of Brewster Place A Novel in Seven Stories"

“Sister Outsider, a collection of essays and speeches by the pioneering feminist Audre Lorde, is one of my all-time-favorite books. It’s always great to have an intersectional tome on hand.” —Amanda Gorman"Sister Outsider's teachings, by one of our most revered elder stateswomen, should be read by everyone." —EssencePresenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature, with a foreword by Mahogany L. Browne.A New York Times New & Noteworthy bookA Penguin Vitae EditionIn this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.The groundbreaking feminist's timely collection of nonfiction writings on race, gender, and LGBTQ issues is now for the first time in Penguin Classics as part of the Penguin Vitae series, with a foreword by poet Mahogany L. Browne.Penguin Classics launches a new hardcover series with five American classics that are relevant and timeless in their power, and part of a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from almost seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

GUARDIAN MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS TO READ 2019NEW STATESMAN MUST READS 2019'A truly radical book, which manages to be unflinching and constantly entertaining'CAROLINE SANDERSON, THE BOOKSELLER BOOK OF THE MONTH APRIL 2019AFRICAN BOOKS ADDICT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2019***Who is a roadman really? What's wrong with calling someone a 'lighty'? Why do people think black guys are cool?These are just some of the questions being wrestled with in Black, Listed, an exploration of 21st century black identity told through a list of insults, insights and everything in-between.Taking a panoramic look at global black history, interrogating both contemporary and historical culture, Black, Listed investigates the ways in which black communities (and individuals) have been represented, oppressed, mimicked, celebrated, and othered. Part historical study, part autobiographical musing, part pop culture vivisection, it's a comprehensive attempt to make sense of blackness from the vantage point of the hilarious and insightful psyche of Jeffrey Boakye. Along the way, it explores a far reaching range of social and cultural contexts, including but not limited to, sport, art, entertainment, politics, literature, history, music, theatre, cinema, education and criminal justice, sometimes at the same time.

‘An important, timely personal essay’ OBSERVER BEST BOOKS OF 2020‘Not taking any bullshit…sharp and stylish…brutal’ GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARIn this powerful and timely personal essay, best-selling author Otegha Uwagba reflects on racism, whiteness, and the mental labour required of Black people to navigate the two.Presented as a record of Uwagba’s observations on this era-defining moment in history – that is, George Floyd’s brutal murder and the subsequent protests and scrutiny of institutional racism – Whites explores the colossal burden of whiteness, as told by someone who is in her own words, ‘a reluctant expert’.What is it like to endure both racism and white efforts at anti-racism, sometimes from the very same people? How do Black people navigate the gap between what they know to be true, and the version of events that white society can bring itself to tolerate? What does true allyship actually look like – and is it even possible?Addressing complex interracial dynamics and longstanding tensions with characteristically unflinching honesty, Uwagba deftly interrogates the status quo, and in doing so provides an intimate and deeply compelling portrayal of an unavoidable facet of the Black experience.

An important and timely anthology of black British writing, edited and curated by the authors of the highly acclaimed, ground-breaking Slay In Your Lane. Slay in Your Lane Presents: Loud Black Girls features essays from the diverse voices of twenty established and emerging black British writers.‘I so enjoyed stepping inside the minds of these younger women who have so much to say, so much to express, so much to challenge’ Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize winning author of Girl, Woman, OtherBeing a loud black girl isn't about the volume of your voice; and using your voice doesn't always mean speaking the loudest or dominating the room. Most of the time it’s simply existing as your authentic self in a world that is constantly trying to tell you to minimise who you are.Now that we’ve learnt how to Slay in our Lanes, what’s next?Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené, authors of the acclaimed Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible, invite the next generation of black women in Britain – authors, journalists, actors, activists and artists – to explore what it means to them to exist in these turbulent times.From assessing the cultural impact of Marvel's Black Panther, to celebrating activism in local communities. From asking how we can secure the bag while staying true to our principles, or how we can teach our daughters to own their voices, to reclaiming our culinary heritage, the essays in Loud Black Girls offer funny touching and ultimately insightful perspectives on the question of ‘What’s Next?’Foreword by Bernardine Evaristo

Finalist for the Lukas prizeWith a New ForewordAfter the election of Donald J. Trump, journalist Seyward Darby went looking for the women of the so-called "alt-right" -- really just white nationalism with a new label. The mainstream media depicted the alt-right as a bastion of angry white men, but was it? As women headlined resistance to the Trump administration's bigotry and sexism, most notably at the Women's Marches, Darby wanted to know why others were joining a movement espousing racism and anti-feminism. Who were these women, and what did their activism reveal about America's past, present, and future?Darby researched dozens of women across the country before settling on three -- Corinna Olsen, Ayla Stewart, and Lana Lokteff. Each was born in 1979, and became a white nationalist in the post-9/11 era. Their respective stories of radicalization upend much of what we assume about women, politics, and political extremism.Corinna, a professional embalmer who was once a body builder, found community in white nationalism before it was the alt-right, while she was grieving the death of her brother and the end of hermarriage. For Corinna, hate was more than just personal animus -- it could also bring people together. Eventually, she decided to leave the movement and served as an informant for the FBI.Ayla, a devoutly Christian mother of six, underwent a personal transformation from self-professed feminist to far-right online personality. Her identification with the burgeoning "tradwife" movement reveals how white nationalism traffics in society's preferred, retrograde ways of seeing women.Lana, who runs a right-wing media company with her husband, enjoys greater fame and notoriety than many of her sisters in hate. Her work disseminating and monetizing far-right dogma is a testament to the power of disinformation.With acute psychological insight and eye-opening reporting, Darby steps inside the contemporary hate movement and draws connections to precursors like the Ku Klux Klan. Far more than mere helpmeets, women like Corinna, Ayla, and Lana have been sustaining features of white nationalism. In the wake of the Capitol Riot of January 6, questions about who makes up the increasingly-visible numbers of political extremists have become more common. Sisters in Hate offers powerful and surprising answers.

"A magnificent starting place for any reader interested in becoming part of the collective enterprise of discovering and uncovering the silent, forgotten, and underrated voices of black women."THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLDFrom all over the world and through the ages, here is a dazzling collection of two hundred women writers of African descent, showcased as never before, including:Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Childress, Maryse Conde, Aldo do Espirito Santo, Marita Golden, Pilar Lopez Gonzales, June Jordan, Terry McMillan, Queen of Sheba, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Phillis Weatley, and many, many others.

An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winnerMorrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition. Written with the artistic vision that has earned the Nobel Prize-winning author a pre-eminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark is an invaluable read for avid Morrison admirers as well as students, critics, and scholars of American literature.

Jezebel's sexual lasciviousness, Mammy's devotion, and Sapphire's outspoken anger—these are among the most persistent stereotypes that black women encounter in contemporary American life. Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized.In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links together black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the current First Lady of the United States. -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for the purpose of national renewal. The emergence of this stereotype in American culture and literature during and after Reconstruction was related to the growth of white-on-black violence, as white lynch mobs acted in "defense" of white womanhood, the white family, and white nationalism. In Writing a Red Record Sandra Gunning investigates American literary encounters with the conditions, processes, and consequences of such violence through the representation of not just the black rapist stereotype, but of other crucial stereotypes in mediating moments of white social crisis: "lascivious" black womanhood; avenging white masculinity; and passive white femininity. Gunning argues that these figures together signify the tangle of race and gender representation emerging from turn-of-the-century American literature. The book brings together Charles W. Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, Thomas Dixon, David Bryant Fulton, Pauline Hopkins, Mark Twain, and Ida B. Wells: famous, infamous, or long-neglected figures who produced novels, essays, stories, and pamphlets in the volatile period of the 1890s through the early 1900s, and who contributed to the continual renegotiation and redefinition of the terms and boundaries of a national dialogue on racial violence.

From Denne Michele Norris and Electric Literature, a vital anthology of essays by trans and gender-nonconforming writers of color, sharing stories of joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery. Featuring seventeen essays by trans people of color--spanning writers, scientists, actors, activists, and drag queens--Both/And explores what it means to live as a trans or gender nonconforming person of color today. Acclaimed authors Akwaeke Emezi, Tanaïs, and Meredith Talusan share their stories alongside activist and organizer Raquel Willis and RuPaul's Drag Race star Peppermint, as well as a host of rising literary talent. Each story is told with honesty, authenticity, and beauty. A nonbinary molecular biologist has nightmares about their estranged father transitioning. A writer revisits a casual hook-up when she discovered her womanhood. And a woman vacations with her wife in Hawaii, where she gets in touch with the fire goddess within. These stories depict real trans lives from trans points of view, at a time when these perspectives are most urgent and valuable. Inspired by Electric Literature's groundbreaking series and edited by the first Black, openly trans editor-in-chief of a major literary publication, Both/And uplifts and amplifies stories of queer joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery.