How Am I to Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian Smith (Gender and American Culture) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807845809 ISBN 13: 9780807845806

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996

Synopsis

This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966), the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its people--white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Her best-known books are Strange Fruit (1944), a bestselling interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of southern race relations that angered many southerners, including powerful moderates. Subsequently, Smith was effectively silenced as a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated, they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman, including her lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this triple isolation--as woman, lesbian, and artist--from mainstream southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern prejudices with absolute clarity.

About this title

Book Description:

"This collection reveals a great deal about Lillian Smith as person, artist, beleaguered social critic and lover."-- New York Times Book Review

About the Author:

Margaret Rose Gladney is associate professor of American studies at the University of Alabama.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0807845809
• ISBN 13: 9780807845806
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Gladney Margaret Rose