How am I to be heard? : letters of Lillian Smith

Bibliographic Information

How am I to be heard? : letters of Lillian Smith

edited by Margaret Rose Gladney

(Gender & American culture / coeditors, Linda K. Kerber, Nell Irvin Painter)

University of North Carolina Press, c1993

  • : cloth
  • : pbk

Available at  / 9 libraries

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Note

Bibliography: p. 361-364

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: cloth ISBN 9780807820957

Description

This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966), the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its people--white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Her best-known books are Strange Fruit (1944), a bestselling interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of southern race relations that angered many southerners, including powerful moderates. Subsequently, Smith was effectively silenced as a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated, they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman, including her lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this triple isolation--as woman, lesbian, and artist--from mainstream southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern prejudices with absolute clarity.
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780807845806

Description

This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966), the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its people--white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Her best-known books are Strange Fruit (1944), a bestselling interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of southern race relations that angered many southerners, including powerful moderates. Subsequently, Smith was effectively silenced as a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated, they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman, including her lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this triple isolation--as woman, lesbian, and artist--from mainstream southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern prejudices with absolute clarity.

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