The tremendous universal appeal of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale took the book world by storm. With her third novel finally earning her the recognition and respect she richly deserved, Terry McMillan followed up with How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which continued to attract new and loyal fans from all walks of life. In this critical work Richards places these inspirational works, as well as McMillan's earlier writings, in their deserved cultural and literary context. Richards offers an insightful analysis of McMillan's narrative technique, which, while having roots in the blues aesthetic, has created a voice that sings out to readers across the lines of sex and race. McMillan's stories are inhabited by strong, dynamic African American women, yet these characters have universal lessons of life and love to share with all readers who appreciate good fiction.
During the last two decades, African American writers have emerged as a distinct and dominant force in world literature. This reference book offers lively, concise, and current information about the lives and imaginative works of 79 contemporary African American novelists. Each of the alphabetically arranged entries begins with a biographical sketch of the author, offers a judicious critical assessment of the author's major works, provides a representative sample of the critical responses the author's books have elicited, and concludes with a selected bibliography that lists the author's publications as well as useful secondary material. Included are entries for major figures, such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, but many noteworthy young writers also receive the attention they deserve. Forty-one of the 79 writers discussed are women, and roughly a dozen of the novelists have identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Intended for students and advanced scholars alike, the volume is sophisticated yet accessible to a wide audience.
The 70 uncut stories in this collection comprise 36 writers from the United States and 34 from Europe and the Americas. It is an anthology which exemplifies the diversity of writers from the African diaspora.