- 406 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
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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Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Chapter One: Becoming a Writer
- Chapter Two: Making a Space, 1917–1942
- Chapter Three: Dropping Bombs on Georgia’s Peace, 1943–1946
- Chapter Four: Confronting Limitations, 1947–1954
- Chapter Five: Struggling to Be Heard, 1955–1959
- Chapter Six: Mothering the Movement, 1960–1963
- Chapter Seven: Reweaving the Web, 1964–1966
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- A section of illustrations follows page 150