Shaking the Tree: A Collection of Fiction and Memoir by Black Women - Hardcover

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9780393050677: Shaking the Tree: A Collection of Fiction and Memoir by Black Women

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039305067X ISBN 13: 9780393050677

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

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"Not since Breaking Ice has an anthology so freed the spirits of African American women."―Ai

Showcasing the newest generation of black women writers, including ZZ Packer, Edwidge Danticat, and Shay Youngblood, Shaking the Tree gathers twenty-three voices that came of age in the wake of the civil rights, black arts, gay rights, and feminist movements. Their literature embodies the tragedies and triumphs of contemporary black women in their struggle to negotiate a sense of individual identity beyond the limited scope of gender and race.

Shaking the Tree offers a panorama of both fiction and memoir, revealing perspectives as diverse as they are dynamic: asha bandele recounts how she fell in love with a prisoner charged with murder; Rebecca Walker explores a childhood split between disparate racial and cultural landscapes; ZZ Packer remembers her near-abduction from summer camp at a time when local black children were being found murdered; Danzy Senna and Carolyn Ferrell tell tales about being young and biracial in a society that sees only in black and white.

This anthology is as urgent as it is historical―these voices are the future of American literature.

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About the Author:

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is the author of a memoir, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression.

From Booklist:

With this collection of fiction and memoirs by 23 black women, Danquah draws attention to a new era of writers following up the legacy established by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Jamaica Kincaid. Danquah's collection focuses on works published after 1990, when black women were facing an explosion of issues new to their generation and moving beyond the constraints of the black community physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. Excerpts from Lorene Cary's Black Ice recall her experiences at a predominately white boarding school; Danzy Senna, Carolyn Ferrell, and Catherine E. McKinley explore the complexities of racially mixed families; Edwidge Danticat's excerpted Krik? Krak! draws parallels between the lives lost in the Middle Passage and an attempted escape from Haiti by boat. Other contributors include Veronica Chambers, Debra J. Dickerson, Itabari Njeri, and Shay Youngblood. The collection explores an array of concerns of black women: sexual and racial politics, tensions between the sexes and the races, and concepts of beauty and sexuality that are influenced and reflected in American racial mythology. Vanessa Bush
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