Writing the Black Revolutionary Diva: Women's Subjectivity and the Decolonizing Text [Paperback]

Kimberly Nichele Brown examines how African American women since the 1970s have found ways to move beyond the double consciousness of the colonized text to develop a healthy subjectivity that attempts to disassociate black subjectivity from its connection to white culture. Brown traces the emergence of this new consciousness from its roots in the Black Aesthetic Movement through important milestones such as the anthologyThe Black WomanandEssencemagazine to the writings of Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and Jayne Cortez.

Brown (Texas A&M Univ.) reacts to the idea that 'African American writers have become increasingly more concerned about how they are received by blacks than whites.' She does so in the context of the backlash against African American women who have been accused of presenting only negative images of African American men. Citing literature that ranges from slave narratives to contemporary work, the author debates the presence of seemingly radical ideas such as double-consciousness, multiple-consciousness, decolonization, oppression, and sexism in African American women's works and the reactions to that literature. In defending her argument, she cites Alice Walker, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and other noted African American women. Issues of female empowerment in the public sphere and audience are central to each of the book's five parts. This title appears in the 'Blacks in the Diaspora' series, which includes a number of titles that would work nicely with it, notable among them Jerry Bryant's 'Born in a Mighty Bad Land': The Violent Man in African American Folklore and Fiction (CH, Oct'03, 41-0770). Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. Choice

Trailblazing representations of black womanhood

Kimberly Nichele Brown is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Texas A&M University.

Writing the Black Revolutionary Diva is a lovely book. Brown manages to rlc1