Conversations with Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde (1934-1992), the author of eleven books of poetry, described herself as a "Black feminist lesbian poet warrior mother," but she added that this phrase was inadequate in capturing her full identity. The interviews in this collection portray the many additional sides of the Harlem-born author and activist. She was also a rebellious child of Caribbean parents, a mastectomy patient, a blue-collar worker, a college professor, a student of African mythology, an experimental autobiographer in her book titled Zami, a critic of imperialism, and a charismatic orator.

Despite her intense engagement with the major social movements of her time, Lorde told interviewers that she was always an outsider, a position of weakness and of strength.

Most of her schoolmates were white. She married a white legal-aid attorney, and after their divorce she was the partner of a white psychologist for many years. These intimate alliances with whites caused some African Americans of both genders to question the depth of her solidarity. Lorde expressed distrust of some white feminists and charged that they lacked real understanding of African American struggles.

Writing proved to be her powerful weapon against injustice. Painfully aware that differences could provoke prejudice and violence, she promoted the bridging of barriers. These interviews reveal the sense of displacement that made Lorde a champion of the outcast and the forgotten--whether in New York, Mississippi, Berlin, or Soweto.

Author: Joan Wylie Hall
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 05/01/2004
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.96h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9781578066438


Review Citation(s):
Women's Review of Books 12/01/2004 pg. 10
Choice 02/01/2005 pg. 1021
Lambda Book Report 01/01/2005 pg. 50

About the Author
Joan Wylie Hall is a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Mississippi. She is author of Shirley Jackson: Studies in Short Fiction and editor of Conversations with Natasha Trethewey, the latter published by University Press of Mississippi. Her work has also been published in numerous journals such as Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, Southern Register, Mississippi Quarterly, Faulkner Journal, and the Eudora Welty Review