remembered rapture: the writer at work - Hardcover

Hooks, Bell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805059091 ISBN 13: 9780805059090

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1999

Synopsis

Drawing on her experiences as a professor of English and the author of sixteen highly acclaimed books, critic bell hooks presents an insightful collection of essays on the process and politics of writing. Centrally, many of the essays raise provocative questions about the feminist movement and women's writing--the kinds of voices women have established in the wake of the demand for more writing by women, the politics of confession and the type of standards being set for women writers by critics. Several essays explore hooks's personal relationship to publishing, explaining the impact success has had on her work as she highlights her movement from writing in relative isolation to writing in New York City amidst the publishing industry, in a world full of writers. Other essays focus on the dearth of nonfiction writing by Black women, contrasting that with the rise in their published fiction. More general essays focus on writing as healing, raising issues about the function of writing; the extent to which readers inspire writers; and how race, ger, and class can determine one's relationship to words. Remembered Rapture offers a fresh and lively discussion of living with words.

About this title

About the Author

Bell Hooks is the author of sixteen books, including Killing Rage (Owl Books, 0-8050-5512-6, $12.95), Bone Black, (Owl Books, 0-8050-5027-2, $11.95) and Wounds of Passion (see Owl catalog, p. 47). She is Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York. She lives in Greenwich Village.

Reviews

The 22 essays in cultural and literary critic hooks's 17th book were written over a period of 20 years and loosely trace her decision to become a writer and her metamorphosis into an academic. Together, they constitute a mixture of intellectual autobiography and manifesto on the proper living of a writer's life. Although in some essays hooks ruminates on her childhood in a working-class Southern black family, many others read like transcripts of lectures for college courses in American literature (hooks has taught at Yale, Oberlin, and the City College of New York), complete with suggested readings. She frequently analyzes her own work alongside the writing of Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Lorraine Hansberry and Jamaica Kincaid. (According to hooks, Kincaid is taken more seriously by "mainstream" critics because she is not African American and because "writing by black writers who are not African-Americans tends to be seen as always more literary and therefore more valuable.") Some of the essays deal with the "politics" of publishing, the duplicity and rancorousness of academe and envy within the ranks of black writers. As always, hooks emphasizes the importance of personal and political identity to writing. Her prose is clear and she presents her arguments with a confident passion. If her politics are predictable, hooks infuses the best of these essays with a personal tone that sheds warm light on this one particular writer's writing life.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A moving testimony to passion for the written word, and to the inherent difficulties of becoming a purveyor of both language and ideas. Cultural critic, memoirist (Wound of Passion: A Writing Life, 1997), and professor of English (City Coll.) hook ss love of language has spurred her to explore various genres and match content to form in a way that most academics do not. ``Any writer'' she says, ``who strives to be true to artistic integrity surrenders to the shape the work takes of its own accord.' ' In Remembered Rapture, her 17th book, she again resists categorization, fusing autobiography with cultural essay, refracting a larger social dynamic through the prism of her experience as a writer who also happens to be a black woman. She reveals her ow n story in order to make points about creativity, publishing, criticismeven the intersection of spirituality and politics. The word ``rapture'' speaks to the reality of writing as a solitary meditation: ``In that moment of grace when the words come, when I surrender to their ecstatic power, there is no witness,'' she says. Except that hooks expertly witnesses her own process. This volume functions not only as a testament to the importance of creative expression, but also as a commentary on the prevailing market forces that determine the viability of that work. And hooks, in her usual, forthright and engaging style, makes plain her opinions: on the dearth of nonfiction by black women authors, the role of race in the critical reception of new work, and the cynicism of the publishing industry. What could have been a caustic, scathing collection of essays, however, proves to be just the opposite: generous, open, and inspiring. Not every essay here offers that visceral jolt of critical insight, but then hooks is writing about the creative process as much as the state of publishing; her success lies in her ability to transmit the joy of writing well. And she does. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In these impassioned essays, prolific writer hooks offers the process and politics of writing with her examinaton of memoir, autobiography, diary writing, and poetry. At the outset she takes issue with critics who contend she writes too much, arguing that, as yet, "no woman has written enough." She goes on to focus primarily on black female writers, showing support for those who are not published and still developing their skills. She writes of spirituality, the feminist movement, and women's studies as keys to her success as a writer and critical thinker. Finally, hooks pays tribute to her literary influences: Emily Dickinson (as she did in Wounds of Passion, LJ 10/1/97), Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Lorraine Hansberry. This serious look at writing by women remarkably captures their essence. Recommended for academic and literary collections.?Ann Burns, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805059091
• ISBN 13: 9780805059090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256