Glory Edim’s anthology ☛WELL-READ BLACK GIRL: FINDING OUR STORIES, DISCOVERING OURSELVES [pub: Ballatine Books] is finally here! Avid readers around the globe pre-ordered this collection of original essays by the likes of Jesmyn Ward, Jacqueline Woodson, Tayari Jones and more.
Edim founded WRBG book club, online community and movement –’cause really, that’s what it is – in 2015. Catch Glory and so many illustrious black women authors at this year’s Well-Read Black Girl Festival in Brooklyn. I can’t wait to check her out at Random House’s Big Ideas Night at the end of November. Click here for more deets.
Per Penguin Random House:
Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives—but not everyone regularly sees themselves in the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all—regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability—have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature.
Contributors include Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing), Lynn Nottage (Sweat), Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn), Gabourey Sidibe (This Is Just My Face), Morgan Jerkins (This Will Be My Undoing), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish), and Barbara Smith (Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology)
Whether it’s learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club–turned–online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women’s writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.
What do you think?
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