Next week, we’ll will discuss Salvage the Bones and Persepolis in more detail, but in the mean time we wanted you to get to know these two mind-blowing authors.
Gloria Naylor
“Naylor read English at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (B.A., 1981) and African American studies at Yale University (M.A., 1983). Her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place (1982), won her instant recognition for its powerful dramatization of the struggles of seven women living in a blighted urban neighbourhood. Using interconnecting stories to portray each woman’s life, Naylor skillfully explored the diversity of black female experience. The 1989 television dramatization of the novel starred Oprah Winfrey, Robin Givens, and Cicely Tyson.
Linden Hills (1985), borrowing its structure and theme from Dante’s Inferno, deals with the destructive materialism of upwardly mobile suburban blacks. Mama Day (1988) blends stories from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest with black folklore, and Bailey’s Cafe (1992) centres on a mythic Brooklyn diner that offers an oasis for the suffering.” - Encyclopedia Britannica
Primary Works
Women of Brewster Place (1982)
Linden Hills (1985)
The Meaning of a Word (1986)
Mama Day (1988)
Bailey’s Cafe (1992)
The Men of Brewster Place (1999)
1996 (2005)
Articles
Carson McCullers
“With a collection of work including five novels, two plays, twenty short stories, more than two dozen nonfiction pieces, a book of children’s verse, a small number of poems, and an unfinished autobiography, Carson McCullers is considered to be among the most significant American writers of the twentieth century. She is best known for her novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and The Member of the Wedding, all published between 1940 and 1946. At least four of her works have been made into films.
Born Lula Carson Smith on February 19, 1917, in Columbus, McCullers was the daughter of Lamar Smith, a jewelry store owner, and Vera Marguerite Waters. Lula Carson, as she was called until age fourteen, attended public schools and graduated from Columbus High School at sixteen.” - New Georgia Encyclopedia
Primary Works
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)
Clock Without Hands(1961)