The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative Writing by Women and Men of All Colors (Beacon Anthology) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807062219 ISBN 13: 9780807062210

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2000

Synopsis

The Beacon Best of 1999 is what I would like to remember as the year 2000 approaches, sketches of what we hold sacred and keep for those to come. . . . These stories, poems, and essays pay homage to what's become of us, to what we bring to the next millennium-the sweet rememberings of the imagined." -Ntozake Shange, from the Introduction

Continuing a commitment to presenting experiences drawn from lives lived outside the lines, Beacon Press presents The Beacon Best of 1999, a dazzling collection that includes the work of Dorothy Allison, Junot Díaz, Rita Dove, Louise Erdrich, Martín Espada, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Ha Jin, Jamaica Kincaid, Barbara Kingsolver, Yusef Komunyakaa, Hanif Kureishi, Marjorie Sandor, and John Edgar Wideman, as well as rising stars like Touré and Reetika Vazirani. Acclaimed playwright, poet, and novelist Ntozake Shange has chosen a treasury of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction published over the past year. In The Beacon Best of 1999, women and men writing with fine grace ask us to look at the whole picture, from the street to the second story-to see, perhaps for the first time, the life of boxer Jack Johnson, or the fierceness of a love transformed into rage for a child killed by gang violence, or the complexities of a love affair in New Delhi, as lenses through which to consider questions of courage, brotherhood, and beauty. The alternative literary annual, The Beacon Best of 1999,/i> will introduce you to a world where tradition and convention are overturned and the unexpected is a welcome guest.

About this title

About the Author

Ntozake Shange is author of many acclaimed works, including the innovative choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, If I Can Cook/You Know God Can, Lilliane, Betsey Brown, and Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo and teaches at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews

This literary annual of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction is designed as a "companion volume" to the "Best American" series and the "Pushcart" prizes. The Beacon Best, however, is meant to be more inclusive, as evidenced by its subtitle. Guest editor Shange writes frequently in her own work about passion, so it is no surprise that the more powerful pieces here, particularly the fiction, contain characters with deep (and often unfulfilled) desires. These include Brenda Miller's "The Date," about a woman agonizing over the dreaded third date; Hanif Kureishi's "Intimacy," concerning a man leaving his partner and their children; and especially Junot D!az's gripping story "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," about a cheating man who meets his comeuppance. These works and others, including Tour?'s Hurstonesque "The Sad Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot and the Portable Promised Land," get this series off to a promising start. For all public libraries.ALouis J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807062219
• ISBN 13: 9780807062210
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324
• Editor: Shange Ntozake