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strvngevsvngels · 1 month
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From Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
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hayley-michael · 11 months
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Emily Temple published this quote in an article on Lit Hub on May 25, 2017.
"You know what’s wrong with readers is that they’ve begun to confuse writing with the things they see in People magazine. But I wish they would reserve some of themselves for not wanting to know the kind of things they want to know. Read the book and then close the book. Any answer a writer may give them about the origins of the book and the author’s real-life will ruin their imaginations. It’s a very important part of a healthy person’s life, an imagination."
~Jamaica Kincaid, from an interview with Bookish
Jamaica Kincaid is currently 73 years old and is a Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University (according to Wikipedia). Her novels include:
Annie John (1985)
Lucy (1990)
The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)
Mr Potter (2002)
See Now Then (2013)
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hedgewitchgarden · 1 month
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Pamela Colman Smith. Image in the public domain.
She’s the world’s most famous occult artist but her name is almost unknown.
Such is the enigma of Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951), an early 20th-century artist, writer, and mystic. Smith created dreamy, Symbolist-inspired watercolors that won her acclaim in her youth, including three successful exhibitions at Alfred Stieglitz’s famed New York gallery, 291, where she was the first non-photographic artist to have a show.
She was also an intimate friend of Dracula writer Bram Stoker, poet William Butler Yeats, and the actress and artistic muse Ellen Terry, for whom Smith designed illustrations and stage sets. 
However, Smith’s most lasting artistic contribution was undoubtedly her designs for the Rider-Waite tarot deck. Made in collaboration with mystic and scholar A.E. Waite, Smith created the Art-Nouveau-inspired imagery of mythical archetypes set against luminous monochromatic backgrounds. Released in 1909, the deck is now regarded as the standard set, with more than 100 million copies in circulation. Smith’s imagery has become synonymous with tarot itself.
And yet, for more than a century, Smith went wholly uncredited for her contribution. Her claim to the deck was only cemented by her iconic serpentine signature, a monogram she created while studying Japanese design, and which she embedded into the decoration for every Tarot card.
“Tarot is a visual device—and yet the visual artist who composed them was eclipsed by Waite, the scholar, and Rider, the manufacturer,” said Micki Pellerano, a New York-based artist, astrologer, and scholar of occult history, “Academics, with all their inertia and corporatism, are somehow more palatable to the public and valuable to the market than artistry and vision… little has changed.”  
But Smith has slowly been gaining recognition. The exhibition “At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism,” currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, features an entire vintage set of the Rider-Waite tarot deck with attribution to Smith alongside The Wave, a luminous 1903 watercolor and ink drawing in the museum’s collection. The artist’s place in art history is still forming, however, and her contributions are more complex than a simple story of rediscovery.  
Pamela Becomes Pixie
Born in London to upper-class American parents, Smith moved through a sophisticated and cultured circle, spending her childhood in New York and then Jamaica, where she would be profoundly shaped by that nation’s folkloric history. Smith returned to New York in 1893, enrolling in Pratt Institute, though she would leave after two years to pursue her own interests, then returning to London following the death of her mother.
She was deeply involved in the literary world and her early accomplishments include the illustrations for a volume of verses by William Butler Yeats (1898), as well as the publication of her own writing, Annancy Stories, a collection of Jamaican folktales, and Widdicombe Fair, an illustrated version of a popular English folk melody. 
By 1901, she had established a weekly salon at her London studio and apartment, and she started her own journal, The Green Sheaf, which she edited as well as contributing her own poems and illustrations. She devoted herself to miniature theater as well, constructing dazzling and diminutive stage sets for toy performances. 
The Annancy Stories particularly won Smith admirers and a bit of notoriety. Smith toyed with gender conventions, granting the women characters in these stories more agency, and sometimes making the gender of the characters ambiguous. She’d also written these stories in Jamaican patois, with which she was familiar from her childhood—an unconventional decision at the time. 
Smith was familiarly known as Pixie, a nickname bestowed on her by Ellen Terry and which captured something of her undefinable, impish spirit. Smith was often known to wear flowing robes, and occasionally pants, and her self-styling welcomed all sorts of speculation. “She adopted native costumes and wore feathers in her hair and colorful ribbons. It was almost like a self-constructed persona that she adopted,” explained Barbara Haskell, curator of the Whitney exhibition, in a phone interview.  
Her sexual orientation and her ethnic makeup also sparked curiosity. She lived for many years with Nora Lake, her companion and business partner, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship. Others have speculated that Smith was of biracial descent, with an English American father and a mother of either Jamaican or East Asian ancestry—although not much evidence exists to lead to any decisive conclusions on the matter. What was certain is that Smith was regarded as “other” by those around her and which in turn inspired her approach to art-making. 
Early Fame and Acclaim 
In 1907, Smith had her first exhibition at 291, featuring 72 watercolor paintings. These works were partially inspired by Smith’s own synesthesia, in which she experienced visual sensations set off by auditory impulses (her first synesthetic experience occurred while listening to Bach). She organized her works for the show with overtly musical references, such as overtures, sonatas, and concertos. 
“In the 19th century, there was an idea that art was an expression of the unconscious and that it would elicit unconscious non-rational ways of thinking about the world,” Haskell said. “Smith would paint while listening to music as a way to unleash her unconscious, which would have fit Stieglitz’s mission at that point.”
This first exhibition was a commercial hit and Smith would have two more shows at the gallery in the following few years. Eleven of her unsold paintings and drawings remained in the collection of Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe. Eventually, however, Stieglitz would turn to a more masculine vision of Modernism, leaving Smith somewhat disheartened. 
The Embrace of the Occult
From early in her life, Smith’s spiritual beliefs were oriented toward the esoteric and arcane. She had been raised a Swedenborgian, a mystical denomination of Christianity, and, as early as 1901, began to engage with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society that explored occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities, which certainly influenced her artistic output.  
For Haskell, these influences were symptomatic of the time. “Smith represents a strain of artists in early American Modernism who were disaffected with materialism and rationalism, but who were also unsatisfied with organized religion and so turned toward more occult pursuits,” she explained. “Theosophy was so influential at the turn of the century and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was similar—a secret society that looked at ancient texts, the kabbalah, and tarot cards. This was predominant among women and I think of Agnes Pelton as a parallel.” 
Smith was eventually approached by A.E. Waite, a scholar of the Hermetic Order, who had ambitions to create a new version of the 78-card tarot deck, and who commissioned Smith to create the illustrations.
Waite, a Grand Master of the Hermetic Order, offered direction for his vision for the order of the Major Arcana, which is characterized by allegorical characters such as the Fool and the Sun. The Minor Arcana, cards in four suits of wands, swords, cups, and pentacles, were left entirely to Smith’s discretion, and she transformed these cards, which had traditionally been simply symbols, into lush, image-laden scenes.
The deck is mythical in scope, ranging from moments of exalted regality to mischievous pleasure, and Smith’s compositional signature predominates the cards: a lone, mysterious, medieval hero appears against a nearly Byzantine monochromatic background.
For Pellarano, Smith’s familiarity with the significance of the tarot is evidenced by her detail. “She possessed a rare command over iconography, and a deep understanding of it,” he said. “Her designs are constantly revealing new layers of information. They encode so much meaning and evoke so much contemplation, but are gentle in their elegance and appeal.” Haskell notes commonalities to the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. “She was in England, and through the theater, she was exposed to a lot of Pre-Raphaelite art” Haskell noted.
Some of the tarot archetypes are believed to have been modeled by Smith’s friends—Ellen Terry’s daughter, Edith Craig, appears as the Queen of Wands and actor William Terriss as the Fool. Smith, who struggled financially throughout her life, would receive no copyright or credit for her contribution, and was paid only a nominal commission.
A Retreat to Obscurity 
Following the publication of the deck, Smith grew increasingly interested in Irish mythology, and in 1911, she made illustrations for Bram Stoker’s final book, Lair of the White Worm. But soon enough, Smith withdrew from the art world. That same year, she converted to Catholicism and with a small inheritance purchased a home in Bude, England.
There she would devote herself more fully to causes like women’s suffrage and the Red Cross. She would die at age 73 in Bude, all but penniless. “It was her decision. She just exited the art world,” Haskell said.  
Still, Haskell believes it is time for Smith to rejoin the story of Modernism. “Art, more than words, presents the mood of the time, and Pamela Colman Smith’s work does get to the essence of a feeling of that era,” she said. “On one hand, people were excited about industrialization and that was the dominant mode, but there were also those who were very concerned that it was stripping individuals of a sense of spirituality and connection to their inner core. That certainly hasn’t gone away and we’ve come fully back into such a moment.”
“Smith’s works feel even more resonant,” Haskell added, “showing art as a way to find a personalized, spiritual connection to divinity in isolating times.” 
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scotianostra · 6 months
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On September 17th 1771, Tobias Smollett, Scottish novelist and playwright, died.
Smollett was an author and translator of the Scottish Enlightenment who lodged in Edinburgh with his sister at St John’s Pend on the Royal Mile.He was a tremendously popular author of what are broadly termed ‘picaresque’ novels of the late eighteenth century: The Adventures of Roderick Random, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom and most famously The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.
He also translated Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quixote in , championing the book in the English-speaking world through his popularity as a picaresque author.
Smollett was born of a good family in Dunbartonshire, on March 19, 1721, the third child of Archibald and Barbara Smollett. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow during the 1730s, but he did not receive his formal medical degree from Marischal College, Aberdeen, until 1750. After a brief term as an apprentice surgeon in Glasgow in 1739, Smollett moved to London in order to pursue his literary ambitions. Financial necessity led him to take a post as surgeon's mate aboard H.M.S. Chichester in 1740. His grim exposure to life in the Royal Navy provided him with many of the vivid scenes of life at sea that he later incorporated into Roderick Random and other novels.
Smollett returned to London from the West Indies briefly in 1742, but he soon sailed back to Jamaica, where he married Anne Lassalls, an heiress, probably in 1743. In 1744, at the same time that he was trying to establish a medical practice in London, Smollett began to publish a series of minor poems and attempted unsuccessfully to have his first play, an ill-starred tragedy entitled The Regicide, produced. Of the occasional odes that Smollett published between 1744 and 1747, the best was his movingly patriotic The Tears of Scotland. The most noteworthy of his Juvenalian verse satires, Advice and Reproof, merely furthered his growing reputation as a quarrelsome Scotsman outraged by the refined vices of London.
For our Outlander fans, the books that is, in The Fiery Cross, Lord John Grey sends Jamie a copy of the newly published “The Expedition of Humphry Clinker” by Tobias Smollett. Further in that same book, Fraser’s Ridge library has another of Tobias Smollett’s works “The Adventures of Roderick Random“ and in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Smollet is also mentioned.
Smollett is one of the 16 Scottish writers and poets depicted on the lower section of the Scott Monument in Princes Street, as in the second pic. He appears on the far left side of the east face. He also has a monument to his honour in beside Renton Primary School, Dunbartonshire.
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mariacallous · 5 months
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David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (also rec’d by John Irving)
“This may not just be my favorite Dickens novel, but my favorite novel period. I read it regularly, and every time is an undimmed pleasure. More, every time it feels fresh. That is the mark of greatness. Although the comic characterization is as juicy as ever, and it’s impossible to read without laughing out loud, Dickens here gives the fullest expression—through the hero who tellingly bears, if back to front, his initials—of horror at the heartbreak, savagery and injustice of the world. It is the ultimate bildungsroman and the truest story of how a person comes to be. Not for nothing was it Freud’s favorite novel.” -NL
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
“This is a nuanced and powerful novel about growing up, the mother-daughter relationship, female identity, sexuality, cultural dissonance, privilege, poverty and the pernicious legacy of colonialism. Kincaid’s style is both immediate and headily intense. A glinting, multifaceted work within relatively so few pages.” -NL
Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
“This book was my late sister Thomasina’s favorite as a child, though it is close to my heart for other than sentimental reasons, too. Within its prettily illustrated story about a fussy eater, it is understanding and touching about the fears and joys of food, and of childhood. So enduringly touching.” -NL
Persuasion by Jane Austen
“Sparer, more savage and so much more poignant than ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ (a great book, too, and I don’t mean to disparage it at all,) ‘Persuasion’ is a novel that tells us, as only Jane Austen can, about the vanities and follies of being human with such memorably dry wit.” -NL
Middlemarch by George Eliot (also rec’d by Bret Easton Ellis, Carrie Fisher & Zadie Smith
“Despite its grand place in the literary canon, ‘Middlemarch’ is really a rich, gossipy boxed set of a novel. I first read this as a teenager in short bursts nightly with a torch after lights-out, and it gripped me like a soap opera. The foolishness of the human condition, the urgency of its whims and fancies, and the often blinding need to find meaning are unsparingly chronicled in this feast of a book.” -NL
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
“PG Wodehouse is not a writer for those who want to read about the rah-rah world of aristocratic fops, he’s a writer for those who love reading sentences that shimmer with brilliance and wit. He is the preeminent English stylist, and I find it impossible to read him without purring with pleasure and hooting with laughter. This particular Jeeves and Wooster novel is a real corker.” -NL
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
“Haunting and transcendentally compelling, this is a prose-poem of a novel about grief, loss, suffering and family. But saying what a Marilynne Robinson novel is ‘about’ seems such a brutish vulgarity: it’s the melancholic yet ecstatic beauty of her language that makes her writing just seep into me, and stay with me.” -NL
The Most of Nora Ephron by Nora Ephron
“Reading a book is like making a friendship, and Nora Ephron is the funniest, cleverest, wisest (and cleverness and wisdom are not the same things at all, and rarely coexist) friend you could have. I really didn’t know whether to proffer Heartburn here or this volume, and in the end I went for this anthology, as it’s impossible to read it (and it does have excerpts from Heartburn,) without having to go on to read everything else Ephron wrote.” -NL
‘Tonio Kroger,’ included in Death In Venice, And Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann
“I know that the novella ‘Tonio Kroger’ is not Thomas Mann’s greatest work. There is some part of me that feels that I should be putting up ‘Buddenbrooks’ or ‘The Magic Mountain’ here. And there’s a strong case for ‘Death in Venice,’ too. But this is the book of his that felled me completely when I read it as a German student in my teens. All Mann’s enduring themes are here: the struggle between duty and love, between the febrile pleasure and teutonic responsibility; and the lethal vulnerability of the lover, set against the wanton cruel power of the beloved. It’s an anguished worldview, which is what spoke so directly to the adolescent reader I was, but no one reads Thomas Mann for woo-woo life-enhancing sentimentality.” -NL
Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
“It would be a mistake to think that this memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton, chef proprietor of Prune, is solely for those interested in food. It is one of the most searingly honest autobiographies I have read: it is the story of a woman struggling to find her place in the world, the story of a lost childhood and a recovered self. This is no self-pitying misery memoir: it’s full of grit and passion, combining vigor with sensitivity, and I am as hungry for her words as I am for her food.” -NL
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sixbucks · 10 months
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A Complete List of the 2023 LAMBDA Literary Awards Winners and Finalists
Congratulations to this years "Lammy" Award winners and finalists! In line with Lambda Literary's mission to advocate for LGBTQ writers, the awards are a way to amplify some of the best writing by queer authors today. More than 1,350 literary works were submitted this year across 25 categories of LGBTQ+ literature, so these books faced some steep competition.
Kick off your own Pride Month Reading Challenge by stocking up on these winning and finalist books! Use promotional code PRIDE23 at check-out to get 20% off these books throughout the month of June.
Bisexual Nonfiction
The Winner: Appropriate Behavior by Maria San Filippo
Finalists:
See why the title essay of this book went viral on the Paris Review website back in 2019.
"The book brings that same frank, funny gaze to bear on a succession of other doomed romances, mining them for complicated truths about how the love stories we inherit, consume and tell come to shape our experience and expectations. Think of it as rehab for road-weary romantics." —The Guardian
Carrying It Forward: Essays from Kistahpinanihk by John Brady McDonald (not carried by Tertulia)
Never Simple: A Memoir by Liz Scheier
Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy by Rachel Krantz
Lesbian Fiction
The Winner: Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang
Finalists:
Locus Magazine called this finalist for the 2022 National Book Award an "extraordi­nary literate and structurally inventive novel about female sexuality, cruelty, desire, and trauma that echoes the work of Lovecraft and Melville. A book this good, this devas­tating, should factor on all the award lists..."
Big Girl: A Novel by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
Our Wives Under the Sea: A Novel by Julia Armfield
Gay Fiction
The Winner: The Foghorn Echoes by Danny Ramadan
Finalists:
Author Andrew Sean Greer called this book "Full of joy and righteous anger, sex and straight talk, brilliant storytelling and humor... A spectacularly researched Dickensian tale with vibrant characters and dozens of famous cameos, it is precisely the book we've needed for a long time."
Call Me Cassandra by Marcial Gala
God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu
Hugs and Cuddles by João Gilberto Noll
Lesbian Memoir/Biography
The Winner: Lost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz
This thriller/sci-fi mash-up was named a best book of the year by NPR.
"In the end, The Paradox Hotel succeeds as both a mystery and as a story involving time travel. Do you want head-spinning theories on the flow of time and what it might do to people and places? You’ll find both in abundance here. But you’ll also find a resourceful, haunted protagonist pushing herself to the limit to uncover the truth behind an impossible case—one that eventually leads her to a conclusion that satisfies both of the genres from which this novel emerged." —Tor.com
Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong
Bisexual Fiction
The Winner: Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste
Finalists:
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy
Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha
Roses, In the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman
Stories No One Hopes Are about Them by A.J. Bermudez
Transgender Fiction
The Winner: The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick
Finalists:
All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham
Manywhere by Morgan Thomas
Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane
LGTBQ+ Young Adult
The Winner: The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes
Finalists:
Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado
Funny Gyal: My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica by Angeline Jackson with Susan McClelland
Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
LGTBQ+ Middle Grade
The Winner: Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy
Finalists:
Answers In the Pages by David Levithan
Different Kinds of Fruit by Kyle Lukoff
Hazel Hill Is Gonna Win This One by Maggie Horne
The Civil War of Amos Abernathy by Michael Leali
LGTBQ+ Children's Book
The Winner: Mighty Red Riding Hood by Wallace West
Finalists:
A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin by Carol Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders
Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson
Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle by Nina LaCour
The Sublime Ms. Stacks by Robb Pearlman
Transgender Nonfiction
The Winner: The Third Person by Emma Grove
Finalists:
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam
Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist by Cecilia Gentili
Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York by Jeremiah Moss
The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment by Cameron Awkward-Rich
LGTBQ+ Nonfiction
The Winner: The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin by Hafizah Augustus Geter
Finalists:
And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community by Ricky Tucker
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan
Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between by Joseph Osmundson
Lesbian Poetry
The Winner: As She Appears by Shelley Wong
Finalists:
Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee
Concentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor
Prelude by Brynne Rebele-Henry
Yearn by Rage Hezekiah
Gay Poetry
The Winner: Some Integrity by Padraig Regan
Finalists:
Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones
Brother Sleep by Aldo Amparán
Pleasure by Angelo Nikolopoulos
Super Model Minority by Chris Tse
Bisexual Poetry
The Winner: Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes by Nicky Beer
Finalists:
50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse by Karyna McGlynn
Dereliction by Gabrielle Octavia Rucker
Indecent Hours by James Fujinami Moore
Meat Lovers by Rebecca Hawkes
Transgender Poetry
The Winner: MissSettl by Kamden Ishmael Hilliard
Finalists:
A Dead Name That Learned How to Live by Golden
A Queen in Bucks County by Kay Gabriel
All the Flowers Kneeling by Paul Tran
Emanations by Prathna Lor
LGTBQ+ Anthology
The Winner: OutWrite: The Speeches That Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture by Julie R. Enszer and Elena Gross
Finalists:
Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology edited by Michael Walsh
This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers by Elias Jahshan
Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource by and for Transgender Communities Second Edition by Laura Erickson-Schroth
Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin
Gay Memoir/Biography
The Winner: High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez
Finalists:
All Down Darkness Wide: A Memoir by Seán Hewitt
An Angel in Sodom by Jim Elledge
Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York by Ron Goldberg
I’m Not Broken by Jesse Leon
LGTBQ+ Mystery
The Winner: Dirt Creek: A Novel by Hayley Scrivenor
Finalists:
A Death in Berlin by David C Dawson
And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling
Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan
Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen
LGTBQ+ Comics
The Winner: Mamo by Sas Milledge
Finalists:
A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir by Will Betke-Brunswick
Gay Giant by Gabriel Ebensperger
Other Ever Afters by Melanie Gillman
The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle
Lesbian Romance
The Winner: The Rules of Forever by Nan Campbell
Finalists:
Hard Pressed by Aurora Rey
If I Don’t Ask by E. J. Noyes
Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond
Southbound and Down by K.B. Draper
Gay Romance
The Winner: I’m So Not Over You by Kosoko Jackson
Finalists:
Forever After by Marie Sinclair (not carried by Tertulia)
Forever, Con Amor by A.M. Johnson
Just One Night by Felice Stevens
Two Tribes by Fearne Hill
LGTBQ+ Romance and Erotica
The Winner: Kiss Her Once For Me: A Novel by Alison Cochrun
Finalists:
A Lady’s Finder by Edie Cay
Loose Lips: A Gay Sea Odyssey by Joseph Brennan
Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner
The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett
LGTBQ+ Drama
The Winner: Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 by Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)
Finalists:
Duecentomila by kai fig taddei
Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic by Sikivu Hutchinson
The Show on the Roof Book by Tom Ford, Music and Lyrics by Alex Syiek (not carried by Tertulia)
Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, Samuel French
 LGTBQ+ Studies
The Winner: Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics by Darieck Scott
Finalists:
Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger between Feminist and Queer by Mairead Sullivan
Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness by Marlon B. Ross
Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability by Vivian L. Huang
There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life by Jafari S. Allen
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starqueen87 · 1 year
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Writer and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891. She is best known for her 1937 novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God." In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Zora Neale Hurston on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
Born in Notasulga, AL, she grew up in Eatonville, FL., and was educated at Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University, where she studied anthropology. Hurston returned to Florida after college for an anthropological field study that influenced her later fiction and folklore.
Hurston traveled extensively in the Caribbean and the American South and immersed herself in local cultural practices to conduct her anthropological research. She collected folklore in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, and Honduras.
In later life, in addition to continuing her literary career, Hurston served on the faculty of North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham, North Carolina.
As a fiction writer, Hurston is noted for her symbolic language, story-telling abilities, and her interest in and celebration of Southern Black culture in the United States. Hurston was closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance and has influenced such writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Gayle Jones, Alice Walker, and Toni Cade Bambara.
Hurston’s book “Of Mules and Men,” remains one of the few writings to chronicle folk tales thoroughly. Her best-known novel is “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” in which she wrote about a Southern Black woman's search, over 25 years and 3 marriages, for her true identity.
In her later years, Hurston experienced health problems, and she died broke and unrecognized by the literary community.
In 1975, Ms. Magazine published Alice Walker's essay, "In Search of #ZoraNealeHurston" reviving interest in the author. Many of her writings were rediscovered and republished and she was finally considered an important author during the Harlem Renaissance.
Source: The Mini Black History Docs Facebook
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otherpplnation · 2 months
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895. Christina Cooke
Christina Cooke is the author of the debut novel Broughtupsy, available from Catapult.
Cooke's writing has previously appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner, PRISM international, Epiphany: A Literary Journal, and elsewhere. A MacDowell Fellow, Journey Prize winner, and Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award winner, she holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of New Brunswick and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Born in Jamaica, Christina is now a Canadian citizen who lives and writes in New York City.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
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authordenisefyffe · 1 year
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The work is never done. We enjoy bringing new #authors #books #literary work to the world. Check out this newbies book. Nanny: The Escape Brings Jamaica's national heroine to life, like never before. Books available on #Amazon. #editing #proofreading #publishing #jamaican #writer @jamaicapenpublishers #manuscript https://www.instagram.com/p/CpMHEjkOxrE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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scholarshipja · 1 year
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Want a career in writing? ✍🏿 This post is for you! 👌🏽 Budding and established writers and literature lovers are being invited to take part in the Jamaica Creative Writing Competition and Exhibition Workshops. The 6-day virtual workshops, organised by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (#JCDC), are slated for February 21, 23, 24, and 28, and March 2 and 3. Among the scheduled presenters are Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of the West Indies (#UWI) Mona, Dr. Lisa Tomlinson; Senior Lecturer in Language and #Literature Education, UWI, Dr. Aisha Spencer, and Educator and Director, Eugene Williams. Link in @jisvoice stories. #jisvoice #scholarshipjamaica (at ScholarshipJamaica.com) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpK7xDeuAXD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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binabipat · 1 year
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Peer Response (3/4)
From Me:
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I chose to respond to Malwina Kolodziejczyk’s literary narrative for Week 14. This was meaningful to me because I was able to get a glimpse into what Malwina personally experienced about language and expression. I included this because I was able to create a in-depth analysis and believe this is one of my better reviews I have done on a peer.
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From Them:
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I received this peer response from Ritali Espada for my mimic of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid in Week #4. This was a poem that broke down things we hear from someone who is giving us advice and she explained both of our interpretations. I chose to include this in the portfolio because Rita and me had similar experiences to the writer’s words and show why I choose to write the mimic poetry as I did.
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I received this peer response from Martina De Buglio on my Literacy Narrative. This was a piece that was close to me as it was about food and culture and how that is a representation of my identity. I chose to include this in my portfolio as it is a perspective of how people saw my work.
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I received another reaction to my Literacy Narrative from Malwina Kolodziejczyk. She did a breakdown of the different aspects of the narrative and how I chose to display my identity. I chose to include this in the portfolio because this is another perspective of how my work was being interpreted. She went in-depth with her response and was on of the most informative responses I have received.
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lboogie1906 · 2 years
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Frank Garvin Yerby (September 5, 1916 – November 29, 1991) was a writer, known for his novel The Foxes of Harrow. He was born in Augusta, Georgia. His parents were Wilhelmina and Rufus Yerby, both of whom were of mixed race. His DNA testing would reveal that he was African American, White, and Native American. He grew up in Augusta and attended two local institutions. He graduated from Haines Institute. Four years later he earned a second degree from Paine College. The following year he entered Fisk University in Nashville where he earned a MA. He began studies toward a doctorate in English from the University of Chicago but dropped out. He taught at FAMU and Southern University. He would find work in Dearborn, Michigan as a technician at the Ford Motor Company. He then migrated to Valley Stream, New York where he worked for Ranger Aircraft, located in Jamaica. He gained success as an author. His story “Health Card” won the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best first published short story of the year. His first novel, The Foxes of Harrow, received critical acclaim. He would write more than thirty novels over his career. His best-known novel, The Dahomean, appeared in 1971. His publications sold more than fifty-five million hardback and paperback books worldwide, making him one of the most commercially successful writers of the 20th Century. His novels often focused on strong male heroes and often included characters of various ethnic backgrounds. His complex storylines, known for their acute sense of history, were enmeshed in romantic intrigue and violence which seemed to enhance their popularity. Despite his commercial success, he was the target of criticism by African American literary critics and activists who charged that his work did not address African America. He was the first best-selling African American novelist. He renounced his American citizenship and lived abroad for the rest of his life. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He married Flora Helen Claire Williams in 1941, divorced in 1956, and they had four children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha https://www.instagram.com/p/CiH6z4AOjtvtIFGNogf-l76MMnZXoqTuoF0vPA0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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scotianostra · 2 years
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On September 17th 1771, Tobias Smollett, Scottish novelist and playwright, died.
Smollett was an author and translator of the Scottish Enlightenment who lodged in Edinburgh with his sister at St John’s Pend on the Royal Mile.He was a tremendously popular author of what are broadly termed ‘picaresque’ novels of the late eighteenth century: The Adventures of Roderick Random, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom and most famously The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.
He also translated Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quixote in , championing the book in the English-speaking world through his popularity as a picaresque author.
Tobias was born of a good family in Dunbartonshire, on March 19, 1721, the third child of Archibald and Barbara Smollett. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow during the 1730s, but he did not receive his formal medical degree from Marischal College, Aberdeen, until 1750. After a brief term as an apprentice surgeon in Glasgow in 1739, Smollett moved to London in order to pursue his literary ambitions. Financial necessity led him to take a post as surgeon’s mate aboard H.M.S. Chichester in 1740. His grim exposure to life in the Royal Navy provided him with many of the vivid scenes of life at sea that he later incorporated into Roderick Random and other novels.
He returned to London from the West Indies briefly in 1742, but he soon sailed back to Jamaica, where he married Anne Lassalls, an heiress, probably in 1743. In 1744, at the same time that he was trying to establish a medical practice in London, Smollett began to publish a series of minor poems and attempted unsuccessfully to have his first play, an ill-starred tragedy entitled The Regicide, produced. Of the occasional odes that Smollett published between 1744 and 1747, the best was his movingly patriotic The Tears of Scotland. The most noteworthy of his Juvenalian verse satires, Advice and Reproof, merely furthered his growing reputation as a quarrelsome Scotsman outraged by the refined vices of London.
For our Outlander fans, the books that is, in The Fiery Cross, Lord John Grey sends Jamie a copy of the newly published “The Expedition of Humphry Clinker” by Tobias Smollett. Further in that same book, Fraser’s Ridge library has another of Tobias Smollett’s works “The Adventures of Roderick Random“ and in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Smollett is also mentioned.
Smollett is one of the 16 Scottish writers and poets depicted on the lower section of the Scott Monument in Princes Street, he also has a monument to his honour in beside Renton Primary School, Dunbartonshire.
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jamesmurualiterary · 2 years
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PREE hosts reading for Caribbean writers in Kingston
PREE hosts reading for Caribbean writers in Kingston
PREE, a leading literary journal from the Caribbean, hosted readings for leading and emerging writers in Kingston, Jamaica on Sunday, June 12, 2022. PREE is an online magazine for new contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean. They publish original works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and experimental writing, giving their authors international visibility far beyond…
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universitybookstore · 5 years
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New from Liveright and Lambda Award winning author Nicole Dennis-Benn, Patsy.
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nellygwyn · 4 years
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I thought I would share some portraits/info about notable black men and women who worked and lived in Georgian Britain. This is not an extensive list by any means, and for some figures, portraits are unavailable:
1. Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) was a writer, abolitionist and former slave. Born into what would become southern Nigeria, he was initially sold into slavery and taken to the Caribbean as a child, but would be sold at least twice more before he bought his freedom in 1766. He decided to settle in London and became involved in the British abolitionist movement in the 1780s. His first-hand account of the horrors of slavery 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano' was published in 1789 and it really drove home the horrors of slavery to the general British public. He also worked tirelessly to support freed slaves like himself who experienced racism and inequality living in Britain's cities. He was a leading member of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group, whose members were primarily freed black men (the Sons of Africa has been called the first black political organisation in British history). He married an English woman, Susannah, and when he died in 1797, he left his fortune of roughly £73,000 to his daughter, Joanna. Equiano's World is a great online resource for those interested in his life, his work, and his writings.
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2. Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades (he's described as an actor, composer, writer, abolitionist, man-of-letters, and socialite - truly the perfect 18th century gentleman). He was born in the Middle Passage on a slave ship. His mother died not long after they arrived in Venezuela and his father apparently took his own life rather than become a slave. Sancho's owner gave the boy to three sisters living in London c. 1730s (presumably as a sort of pet/servant) but whilst living with them, his wit and intellect impressed the 2nd Duke of Montagu who decided to finance his education. This was the start of Sancho's literary and intellectual career and his association with the elite of London society saw him ascend. He struck up a correspondence with the writer, Laurence Sterne, in the 1760s: Sancho wrote to press Sterne to throw his intellecrual weight behind the cause of abolition. He became active in the early British abolitionist movement and be counted many well-known Georgians amongst his acquaintance. He was also the first black man known to have voted in a British election. He married a West Indian woman and in 1774, opened a grocer's shop in London, that attempted to sell goods that were not produced by slave labour. Despite his popularity in Georgian society, he still recounts many instances of racist abuse he faced on the streets of London in his diaries. He reflected that, although Britain was undoubtedly his home and he had done a lot for the country, he was 'only a lodger and hardly that' in London. His letters, which include discussions of domestic subjects as well as political issues, can be read here.
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3. Francis 'Frank' Barber (1742-1801) was born a slave on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. His owner, Richard Bathurst, brought Frank to England when Frank turned 15 and decided to send him to school. The Bathursts knew the writer, Samuel Johnson, and this is how Barber and the famous writer first met (Barber briefly worked as Johnson's valet and found him an outspoken opponent of the slave trade). Richard Bathurst gave Frank his freedom when he died and Frank immediately signed up for the navy (where he apparently developed a taste for smoking pipes). In 1760, he returned permanently to England and decided to work as Samuel Johnson's servant. Johnson paid for Frank to have an expensive education and this meant Frank was able to help Johnson revise his most famous work, 'Dictionary of the English Language.' When Johnson died in 1784, he made Frank his residual heir, bequeathing him around £9000 a year (for which Johnson was criticised in the press - it was thought to be far too much), an expensive gold watch, and most of Johnson's books and papers. Johnson also encouraged Frank to move to Lichfield (where Johnson had been born) after he died: Frank duly did this and opened a draper's shop and a school with his new wife. There, he spent his time 'in fishing, cultivating a few potatoes, and a little reading' until his death in 1801. His descendants still live at a farm in Litchfield today. A biography of Frank can be purchased here. Moreover, here is a plaque erected on the railings outside of Samuel Johnson's house in Gough Square, London, to commemorate Johnson and Barber's friendship.
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4. Dido Elizabeth Belle (1764-1801) was born to Maria Belle, a slave living in the West Indies. Her father was Sir John Lindsay, a British naval officer. After Dido's mother's death, Sir John took Dido to England and left her in the care of his uncle, Lord Mansfield. Dido was raised by Lord Mansfield and his wife alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray (the two became as close as sisters) and was, more or less, a member of the family. Mansfield was unfortunately criticised for the care and love he evidently felt for his niece - she was educated in most of the accomplishments expected of a young lady at the time, and in later life, she would use this education to act as Lord Mansfield's literary assistant. Mansfield was Lord Chief Justice of England during this period and, in 1772, it was he who ruled that slavery had no precedent in common law in England and had never been authorised. This was a significant win for the abolitionists, and was brought about no doubt in part because of Mansfield's closeness with his great-niece. Before Mansfield died in 1793, he reiterated Dido's freedom (and her right to be free) in his will and made her an heiress by leaving her an annuity. Here is a link to purchase Paula Byrne's biography of Dido, as well as a link to the film about her life (starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido).
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5. Ottobah Cugoano (1757-sometime after 1791) was born in present-day Ghana and sold into slavery at the age of thirteen. He worked on a plantation in Grenada until 1772, when he was purchased by a British merchant who took him to England, freed him, and paid for his education. Ottobah was employed as a servant by the artists Maria and Richard Cosway in 1784, and his intellect and charisma appealed to their high-society friends. Along with Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah was one of the leading members of the Sons of Africa and a staunch abolitionist. In 1786, he was able to rescue Henry Devane, a free black man living in London who had been kidnapped with the intention of being returned to slavery in the West Indies. In 1787, Ottobah wrote 'Thoughts And Sentiments On The Evil & Wicked Traffic Of The Slavery & Commerce Of The Human Species,' attacking slavery from a moral and Christian stand-point. It became a key text in the British abolition movement, and Ottobah sent a copy to many of England's most influential people. You can read the text here.
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6. Ann Duck (1717-1744) was a sex worker, thief and highwaywoman. Her father, John Duck, was black and a teacher of swordmanship in Cheam, Surrey. He married a white woman, Ann Brough, in London c. 1717. One of Ann's brothers, John, was a crew-member of the ill-fated HMS Wager and was apparently sold into slavery after the ship wrecked off the coast of Chile on account of his race. Ann, meanwhile, would be arrested and brought to trial at least nineteen times over the course of her lifetime for various crimes, including petty theft and highway robbery. She was an established member of the Black Boy Alley Gang in Clerkenwell by 1742, and also quite frequently engaged in sex work. In 1744, she was given a guilty verdict at the Old Bailey after being arrested for a robbery: her trial probably wasn't fair as a man named John Forfar was paid off for assisting in her arrest and punishment. She was hanged at Tyburn in 1744. Some have argued that her race appears to have been irrelevant and she experienced no prejudice, but I am inclined to disagree. You can read the transcript of one of Ann Duck's trials (one that resulted in a Not Guilty verdict) here. Also worth noting that Ann Duck is the inspiration behind the character Violet Cross in the TV show 'Harlots.'
7. Bill Richmond (1763-1829) was a prize winning bare-knuckle boxer of the late 18th and early 19th century. He was born a slave in New York (then part of British America) but moved permanently to England in 1777 where he was most likely freed and received an education. His career as a boxer really took of in the early 19th century, and he took on all the prize fighters of the time, including Tom Cribb and the African American fighter, Tom Molineaux. Richmond was a sporting hero, as well as fashionable in his style and incredibly intelligent, making him something of a celebrity and a pseudo-gentleman in his time. He also opened a boxing academy and gave boxing lessons to gentlemen and aristocrats. He would ultimately settle in York to apprentice as a cabinet-maker. Unfortunately, in Yorkshire, he was subject to a lot of racism and insults based on the fact he had married a white woman. You can watch a Channel 4 documentary on Richmond here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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8. William Davidson (1781-1820) was the illegitimate son of the Attorney General of Jamaica and a slave woman. He was sent to Glasgow in Scotland to study law at the age of 14 and from this period until 1819, he moved around Britain and had a number of careers. Following the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, Davidson began to take a serious interest in radical politics, joining several societies in order to read radical and republican texts. He also became a Spencean (radical political group) through his friendship with Arthur Thistlewood and would quickly rise to become a leading member of the group. In 1820, a government provocateur tricked Davidson and other Spenceans, into being drawn into a plot to kill the Earl of Harrowby and other government cabinet officers as they dined at Harrowby's house on the 23rd February. This plot would become known as the Cato Street Conspiracy (named thus because Davidson and the other Spenceans hid in a hayloft in Cato Street whilst they waited to launch their plan). Unfortunately, this was a government set up and eleven men, including Davidson, were arrested and charged with treason. Davidson was one of five of the conspirators to not have his sentence commuted to transportation and was instead sentenced to death. He was hanged and beheaded outside of Newgate Prison in 1820. There is a book about the Cato Street Conspiracy here.
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9. Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1705-1775) was born in the Kingdom of Bornu, now in modern day Nigeria. As the favourite grandson of the king of Zaara, he was a prince. Unfortunately, at the age of 15, he was sold into slavery, passing first to a Dutch captain, then to an American, and then finally to a Calvinist minister named Theodorus Frelinghuysen living in New Jersey. Frelinghuysen educated Gronniosaw and would eventually free him on his deathbed but Gronniosaw later recounted that when he had pleaded with Frelinghuysen to let him return to his family in Bornu, Frelinghuysen refused. Gronniosaw also remembered that he had attempted suicide in his depression. After being freed, Gronniosaw set his sights on travelling to Britain, mainly to meet others who shared his new-found Christian faith. He enlisted in the British army in the West Indies to raise money for his trip, and once he had obtained his discharge, he travelled to England, specifically Portsmouth. For most of his time in England, his financial situation was up and down and he would move from city to city depending on circumstances. He married an English weaver named Betty, and the pair were often helped out financially by Quakers. He began to write his life-story in early 1772 and it would be published later that year (under his adopted anglicised name, James Albert), the first ever work written by an African man to be published in Britain. It was an instant bestseller, no doubt contributing to a rising anti-slavery mood. He is buried in St Oswald's Church, Chester: his grave can still be visited today. His autobiography, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, as Related by Himself, can be read here.
10. Mary Prince (1788-sometime after 1833) was born into slavery in Bermuda. She was passed between several owners, all of whom very severely mistreated her. Her final owner, John Adams Wood, took Mary to England in 1828, after she requested to be able to travel as the family's servant. Mary knew that it was illegal to transport slaves out of England and thus refused to accompany Adams Wood and his family back to the West Indies. Her main issue, however, was that her husband was still in Antigua: if she returned, she would be back in enslavement, but if she did not, she might never see her husband again. She contacted the Anti-Slavery Society who attempted to help her in any way they could. They found her work (so she could support herself), tried tirelessly to convince Adams Wood to free her, and petitioned parliament to bring her husband to England. Mary successfully remained in England but it is not known whether she was ever reunited with her husband. In 1831, Mary published The History of Mary Prince, an autobiographical account of her experiences as a slave and the first work written by a black woman to be published in England. Unlike other slave narratives, that had been popular and successful in stoking some anti-slavery sentiment, it is believed that Mary's narrative ultimately clinched the goal of convincing the general British population of the necessity of abolishing slavery. Liverpool's Museum of Slavery credits Mary as playing a crucial role in abolition. You can read her narrative here. It is an incredibly powerful read. Mary writes that hearing slavers talk about her and other men and women at a slave market in Bermuda 'felt like cayenne pepper into the fresh wounds of our hearts.'
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