A Burst of Light: Essays - Hardcover

Lorde, Audre

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0932379400 ISBN 13: 9780932379405

Publisher: Firebrand Books

Synopsis

The author discusses her life as a Black lesbian, her struggle against cancer, sadomasochism within the gay community, and apartheid and its relationship to racism in American society

About this title

About the Author:

A great American theorist of race, sexuality, gender, living, and dying, poet and activist Audre Lorde (1934–1992) created a body of work that was ahead of its time in its embrace of intersectionality. Her debut poetry collection, 1973's From a Land Where Other People Live, was nominated for the National Book Award and she was named New York State's Poet Laureate and received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. Other notable works include The Cancer Journals, her novel Zami, and the collection Sister Outsider. A member of the Black Arts Movement and a prominent advocate of the Afro-German identity during her years studying in Berlin, Lorde's writings have become increasingly influential since her death in 1992 of liver cancer.

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1984, feminist poet Lorde learned that her breast cancer had metastasized to the liver. The moving title section comprises a series of journal excerpts that both frighten and inspire: choosing not to have a biopsy, she instead treats the disease with a stay at the homeopathic Lukas Klinik in Switzerland, consultations with more traditional medical specialists and alternatives like self-hypnosis. Her lifelong battle against racism, sexism and homophobia has armed her with the resilience to resist cancer, and thus "A Burst of Light" becomes not only a chronicle of Lorde's fight against disease, but a view of one woman's sparring with injustice, whether the oppressors are the South African police, the American government or malignant cells within her own body. Although it rings out with passion, anger and hope, the lengthy title piece is sometimes rambling and repetitive. In refreshing contrast, three outstanding essays on black lesbianism, the parallels between South Africa and the United States, and lesbian parenting are politically specific and pithy.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firebrand Books
• ISBN 10: 0932379400
• ISBN 13: 9780932379405
• Binding: Hardcover