Read complete books and articles on: African-American Women Writers

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: African-American Women Writers

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Work of the Afro-American Woman » Read Now
by N. F. Mossell. 182 pgs.

Collections: History, Literature, Entire Library

Part intellectual history, part advice book, and part polemic, this collection of original essays and poetry is a defence and celebration of the achievements - moral, material, intellectual, and artistic - of black women in Victorian America. Writing as a Christian, a mother, and a wife, Mrs Mosell...
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Part intellectual history, part advice book, and part polemic, this collection of original essays and poetry is a defence and celebration of the achievements - moral, material, intellectual, and artistic - of black women in Victorian America. Writing as a Christian, a mother, and a wife, Mrs Mosell held exemplary models of black womanhood before the public eye. A source of instruction and inspiration in its own time, it remains today a valuable document of black American cultural and intellectual history.
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2.

Black American Women Poets and Dramatists » Read Now
by Harold Bloom. 247 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Tradition," Southern Women Writers : The New Generation...prominently in recent African American womens writings...Wind," Black Women Writers 1950-1980...haranguing either...
3.

Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist » Read Now
by Hazel V. Carby. 223 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

A cultural history of the work of nineteenth-century black women writers, this volume traces the emergence of the novel as a forum for political and cultural reconstruction, examining the ways in which dominant sexual ideologies influenced the literary conventions of women's fiction, and reassessing...
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A cultural history of the work of nineteenth-century black women writers, this volume traces the emergence of the novel as a forum for political and cultural reconstruction, examining the ways in which dominant sexual ideologies influenced the literary conventions of women's fiction, and reassessing the uses of fiction in American culture. Carby revises the history of the period of Jim Crow and Booker T. Washington, depicting a time of intense cultural and political activity by such black women writers as Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Pauline Hopkins.
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4.

Their Place on the Stage: Black Women Playwrights in America » Read Now
by Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. 168 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"This is the first book-length study of black American women playwrights. It will be useful to scholars in the fields of black and women's literature and an excellent source of background reading in graduate and undergraduate courses on American women playwrights. The author's training as both a...
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"This is the first book-length study of black American women playwrights. It will be useful to scholars in the fields of black and women's literature and an excellent source of background reading in graduate and undergraduate courses on American women playwrights. The author's training as both a scholar and a playwright is evident in this book." Choice
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5.

Wines in the Wilderness: Plays by African American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present » Read Now
by Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. 251 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"For those whose familiarity with black women playwrights is limited to the works of Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange, this collection of 15 plays written between 1925 and 1985 by eight authors will be a revelation. They express a passionate longing for social justice and for a stable...
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"For those whose familiarity with black women playwrights is limited to the works of Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange, this collection of 15 plays written between 1925 and 1985 by eight authors will be a revelation. They express a passionate longing for social justice and for a stable, nurturing relationship between black men and women. Introductions for each author provide biographical information and critical analyses. A useful bibliography of plays and secondary sources is also included. This anthology helps to fill a serious gap in the standard histories of American drama." Library Journal
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6.

Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746-1892 » Read Now
by Frances Smith Foster. 194 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This is the first comprehensive cultural of history of literature by African American women prior to the Twentieth century. Beginning with the earliest extant writings, Frances Smith Foster her textual analysis within the writers' social and literary contexts.
7.

With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women » Read Now
by Shirley Logan Wilson. 172 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...PLATFORM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE was filled with turmoil and...Some muffled voices are those of black women, voices that are gradually being...
8.

Black Women Writers and the American Neo-Slave Narrative: Femininity Unfettered » Read Now
by Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu. 186 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The neo-slave narrative is an important development in American literary history and has serious revisionist intentions at its foundation. This book examines how contemporary African American women writers have shaped the genre. These authors have written neo-slave narratives to reinscribe history...
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The neo-slave narrative is an important development in American literary history and has serious revisionist intentions at its foundation. This book examines how contemporary African American women writers have shaped the genre. These authors have written neo-slave narratives to reinscribe history from the perspective of the African American woman, most specifically the nineteenth century enslaved mother. The writers considered in this study--Sherley Anne Williams, Toni Morrison, J. California Cooper, Gayl Jones, and Octavia Butler--explore American slavery through the lens of gender, both to interrogate the myth that enslaved women, denied the privilege of having a gender identity by the institution of slavery, were in fact genderless, and to celebrate the acts of resistance which enabled enslaved women to mother in the fullest sense of the term.
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9.

Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature » Read Now
by Janice Lee Liddell, Yakini Belinda Kemp. 268 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Edited collection of essays examining the fiction of contemporary Africana women including Ama Ata Aidoo, Shirley Anne Williams, Ntozake Shange, Flora Nwapa, Maryse Conde, Elizabeth Nunez Harrell, Jamaica Kinkaid and others.
10.

Mythatypes: Signatures and Signs of African/Diaspora and Black Goddesses » Read Now
by Alexis Brooks De Vita. 188 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Dr. Alexis Brooks De Vita analyzes African/Diaspora women's literary voices and images in ways which enhance and expand upon their unique--and uniquely inherited--symbols of female power. She identifies goddesses and ancestresses interacting in tales of literary heroines, reading individual stories...
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Dr. Alexis Brooks De Vita analyzes African/Diaspora women's literary voices and images in ways which enhance and expand upon their unique--and uniquely inherited--symbols of female power. She identifies goddesses and ancestresses interacting in tales of literary heroines, reading individual stories against and within their timeless and dynamic historico-spiritual communities.
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11.

Mules and Dragons: Popular Culture Images in the Selected Writings of African-American and Chinese-American Women Writers » Read Now
by Mary E. Young. 158 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Young compares and contrasts the histories of African-American and Chinese-American women, then analyzes each group's response to the stereotyped images that have become a part of American cultural history. Her vehicle for this study is fiction from writers as diverse as James Fenimore Cooper...
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Young compares and contrasts the histories of African-American and Chinese-American women, then analyzes each group's response to the stereotyped images that have become a part of American cultural history. Her vehicle for this study is fiction from writers as diverse as James Fenimore Cooper, William Wells Brown, Ambrose Bierce, and Frank Chin, and from Euro-American, African-American, and Chinese-American writers who created the dominant stereotypes. Young examines the response to these stereotypes in the writings of key African and Chinese-American women writers such as Linda Brent, Frances Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Sui Sin Far, Chang Hua, and Amy Tan.
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12.

Moorings & Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women's Literature » Read Now
by Karla F. C. Holloway. 226 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...writing. Contemporary African-American women writers whose work focuses on...traditions in African and African-American women writers texts. Chapter two is...literature by...
13.

Broken Silences: Interviews with Black and White Women Writers » Read Now
by Shirley M. Jordan. 328 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

By selecting articulate, amusing, impassioned, and introspective authors who have portrayed characters across race lines, Jordan focuses on commonalities, as well as important differences, in this creative process. A rare opportunity to read the private thoughts about race and creativity of Joyce...
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By selecting articulate, amusing, impassioned, and introspective authors who have portrayed characters across race lines, Jordan focuses on commonalities, as well as important differences, in this creative process. A rare opportunity to read the private thoughts about race and creativity of Joyce Carol Oates, Belva Plain, Grace Paley, Sherley Anne Williams, and others. Illustrated.
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14.

African American Authors, 1745-1945: Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook » Read Now
by Emmanuel S. Nelson. 528 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

There has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in early African American writing. The works of dozens of 18th and early 20th century black writers have been recovered and reprinted; there has been a significant revival of interest in the Harlem Renaissance; and several major assessments of 18th...
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There has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in early African American writing. The works of dozens of 18th and early 20th century black writers have been recovered and reprinted; there has been a significant revival of interest in the Harlem Renaissance; and several major assessments of 18th and 19th century African American literature have recently been published. This reference book provides alphabetically arranged entries for 78 African American writers active between 1745 and 1945. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a summary of the critical response to the author, and primary and secondary bibliographies. A selected, general bibliography concludes the volume.
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15.

American Women Writers, 1900-1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook » Read Now
by Laurie Champion. 412 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Women writers have been traditionally excluded from literary canons, not until recently have scholars begun to rediscover or discover neglected women writers and their works. This reference includes alphabetically arranged entries on 58 American women authors who wrote between 1900 and 1945, a...
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Women writers have been traditionally excluded from literary canons, not until recently have scholars begun to rediscover or discover neglected women writers and their works. This reference includes alphabetically arranged entries on 58 American women authors who wrote between 1900 and 1945, a period that embraces two major artistic movements, Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a review of the author's critical reception, and extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume reflects the diversity of American culture through its coverage of African American, Native American, Mexican American, and Chinese American women writers.
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16.

Crossing Borders through Folklore: African American Women's Fiction and Art » Read Now
by Alma Jean Billingslea-Brown. 146 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library