How Am I to Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian Smith (Gender and American Culture) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807845809 ISBN 13: 9780807845806

Publisher: University North Carolina Pr, 1996

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Rose Gladney is associate professor of American studies at the University of Alabama.

Edition details

• Publisher: University North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807845809
• ISBN 13: 9780807845806
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Gladney Margaret Rose