Zami: A New Spelling of my Name (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Lorde, Audre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241351081 ISBN 13: 9780241351086

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2018

Synopsis

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive

A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem, weak and half-blind. On she stumbles - through teenage pain and loneliness, but then to happiness in friendship, work and sex, from Washington Heights to Mexico, always changing, always strong. This is Audre Lorde's story. A rapturous, life-affirming autobiographical novel by the 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet', it changed the literary landscape.

'Her work shows us new ways to imagine the world ... so many themes of Audre's work have endured' Renni Eddo Lodge, author of Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

'I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration' Jackie Kay

About this title

Review:

I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration. At last I felt I fitted in. (Jackie Kay)

Excellent and evocative... personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness shine through the writing. Her experiences are painted with exquisite imagery (The New York Times)

Zami is important because of its descriptions of growing up a black lesbian feminist in the 1950s, with open, unapologetic, vivid descriptions of women's relationships (Guardian)

Her work is so quotable. It has the zeitgeist factor. Now, just as much as ever, we need the voice of Audre Lorde (New Statesman)

I have an Audre Lorde google alert on my phone. It helps confirm how relevant my favorite black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet remains today (Huffington Post)

Audre Lorde says it best (Refinery29)

Lorde's examination of her multiple outsiderness pried my sheltered mind wide open (Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home (in ‘My Ten Favorite Books,’ New York Times Magazine))

Zami is just the best (Vice)

Zami made me realise that I was not alone ... that I, too, could be as courageous and as loud with my truths (Elle Magazine)

Zami feels larger than life - almost legendary - while remaining grounded, intimate and moving (Cosmopolitan)

From the Back Cover:

“Zami. Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers.”

In this classic autobiography Audre Lorde combines elements of history, biography and myth to tell her own story. A young black girl grows up in thirties Harlem, a teenager lives through Pearl Harbour, a young woman experiences McCarthyism in fifties Greenwich Village. In and out of this lyrical chronicle move the women – mothers, lovers, friends – who are zami: ‘Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon on me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me – so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognise her.”

“Lorde is a convincing, powerful writer. Her prose speaks directly to the heart of racism, self-acceptance, mother- and womanhood”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Listen to this rich and raging voice”
ADRIENNE RICH

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0241351081
• ISBN 13: 9780241351086
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320