Willie Mae
Published on 5. January 2004
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-8203-2376-3 (ISBN)
Description
First published in 1958 and selected by the New York Times as one of the best books of the year, Willie Mae is a first-person account of a black woman's life and her experiences as a domestic worker in a succession of southern households in the first half of the century.
Powerful and poignant, sometimes funny and always honest, Willie Mae is a testament to the courage and strength of a generation of women who struggled to survive with dignity and humanity in the years before the civil rights movement.
Powerful and poignant, sometimes funny and always honest, Willie Mae is a testament to the courage and strength of a generation of women who struggled to survive with dignity and humanity in the years before the civil rights movement.
Reviews / Votes
Willie Mae speaks with a voice of wisdom, suffering, truth, and joy. It is a voice gentle on our ears but ruthless on our consciences-a voice worth heeding, still and again, in these edgy times. -- Bill Moyers One of the first books to bring the contemporary problems of African Americans (especially African-American women) to the attention of a large national audience . . . Untold thousands of women struggled in similar circumstances, and this record of her daily trials reveals how much the Civil Rights Movement accomplished. -- <i>Los Angeles Times Book Review</i> Honestly, unsentimentally, but movingly Willie Mae reminds us of how far the boundaries of racial repression have shifted and yet how far they still bind us as a nation. It is time for a new generation to hear her story. -- Dan T. Carter The sociology, the economics, the politics, are all implicit in Willie Mae's story. . . . She knows hunger ('if you eat laundry starch, you don't be hungry for anything else much'), and humor, large losses and small gains-and from it all gathers unto herself a tough, resilient sort of wisdom. -- <i>New Republic</i> Poignant as a spiritual and lyrical as the blues. -- <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Georgia
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
431 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8203-2376-3 (9780820323763)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
ELIZABETH KYTLE's books include Willie Mae and The Voices of Robby Wilde (both Georgia).