Norton Book of Women's Lives
"This magnificent, handsome, handful of an anthology . . ."* includes sixty-one substantial selections from the twentieth-century literature of women's lives: autobiographies, journals, and memoirs. "As varied in humanity as in geography,"** the women whose life stories are collected here include the famous—Maya Angelou, Maxine Hong Kingston, Anne Frank, Virginia Woolf—and the surprising—Emma Mashinini, a black South African labor organizer; Onnie Lee Logan, an Alabama "granny" midwife; Sara...
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"This remarkable and wide-ranging collection, full of surprises, should encourage any woman who is trying to survive in a man's world, and enlighten any man who sincerely wants to understand contemporary women." —Alison Lurie Library Journal Because of the breadth and richness of these 61 selections, which demonstrate the evolution of women's autobiographical writing, this anthology is destined to become a classic. Works of the famous, i.e., Helen Keller and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, are interspersed with those not publicly known. There are landmark passages from Anne Frank, Mary McCarthy, and Anais Nin, women whose names are synonymous with the diary form. Many passages represent the experiences of political activists like Bernadette Devlin. The collection is multicultural in scope, ranging, for example, from the poetry of Maya Angelou in the United States to the oral autobiography of Nisa, an African tribal member. The emphasis is upon experience rather than literary quality, resulting in the inclusion of passages not readily available elsewhere. The selections are alphabetically arranged, and the introductory material about each author helpfully refers the reader to related passages. Recommended for public and academic library collections.-- Mary Ellen Beck, Troy P.L., N.Y.
Introduction11From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings41From The Prime of Life53From The Italics Are Mine68From Testament of Youth78From A Life of Her Own87From Life and Death in Shanghai109From Silent Dancing129From My Apprenticeships144From The Road from Coornin153From Notes173From The Price of My Soul187From The White Album197From An American Childhood210From Out of Africa219From The War232From As They Were245From An Angel at My Table253From Diary275From Journey into the Whirlwind299From Family Sayings318From Fierce Attachments332From Times and Places344From When Heaven and Earth Changed Places360From Pentimento376From Lost in Translation387From Lady Sings the Blues402From Mules and Men406From Diary422From Minor Characters431From The Story of My Life444From The Woman Warrior452From Totto-Chan470From Gift from the Sea477From Motherwit483From Zami: A New Seeing of My Name496From West with the Night518From Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life530From Memories of a Catholic Girlhood539From Blackberry Winter555From The Loony-Bin Trip569From Daughters and Rebels576From Coming of Age in Mississippi591From Memoir of a Modernist's Daughter605From Diary615From A Daughter of Han630From Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman636From Art & Ardor657From Diary664From Gifts of Passage671From Cross Creek685From Confession693From The Measure of My Days703From Bronx Primitive707From Landscape for a Good Woman715From The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas725From Meatless Days730From Leftover Life to Kill743From Diary759From Daybook774From Berlin Diaries785From Diary795Acknowledgments811Copyright Notices813Index817
\ Library JournalBecause of the breadth and richness of these 61 selections, which demonstrate the evolution of women's autobiographical writing, this anthology is destined to become a classic. Works of the famous, i.e., Helen Keller and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, are interspersed with those not publicly known. There are landmark passages from Anne Frank, Mary McCarthy, and Anais Nin, women whose names are synonymous with the diary form. Many passages represent the experiences of political activists like Bernadette Devlin. The collection is multicultural in scope, ranging, for example, from the poetry of Maya Angelou in the United States to the oral autobiography of Nisa, an African tribal member. The emphasis is upon experience rather than literary quality, resulting in the inclusion of passages not readily available elsewhere. The selections are alphabetically arranged, and the introductory material about each author helpfully refers the reader to related passages. Recommended for public and academic library collections.-- Mary Ellen Beck, Troy P.L., N.Y.\ \
