Showing results by author "Alice Dunbar-Nelson" in All Categories

Dive into the vibrant and complex Creole society of New Orleans through these captivating tales that illuminate the challenges faced by black Americans at the close of the nineteenth century. - Summary by Jim Locke

In Violets And Other Tales, the author masterfully weaves a tapestry of short stories and poems that delve into the rich and complex experiences of African American women and the broader African American community. With piercing insight, she challenges the traditional narrative that dictates women must accept subservience to men, offering a powerful voice that resonates with strength and resilience. - Summary by James K. White

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

To be a woman is to be half the world’s population but, in many countries, unfortunately still now and for most of history, women were decidedly second class, normally no more than chattels and the bearers and nurturers of children. As society involved into a complex and overlapping system where education and equality begin to seek space things began to change. In this volume our authors describe and reveal how life actually felt for almost all women before the recent past.

When we read or listen, words can have a transforming effect. Our mood can alter in the space of a few sentences from joy to sadness. And not just our mood. These words can affect us physically, they can engage our emotions and even in their sadness bring a lump to our throat and tears to our eyes. Sometimes the relief can be palpable. Our authors, from Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Katherine Mansfield and a wealth of others, are well aware of what their talents will evoke. Genius has many names.

This century unfolds with a fast-changing world riven by immense wars and glutton hungry Empires. Women strive to win the most basic of rights, the right to vote. Their literary testament is now a vital part of our cultural world. They write on all manner of subjects with truth, with imagination and with undeniable talent. We are all the richer for their words.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this Century of profound change for women our Atlantic neighbours produced authors of extraordinary ability that dazzled us all with a range of ideas, characters and stories of such magnificence that literature would never be the same again. Genius is written in their names.