Editions

Zami

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241351086

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 18mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 236g

  • RRP: £9.99

Zami

  • A New Spelling of my Name

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive

A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem, weak and half-blind. On she stumbles - through teenage pain and loneliness, but then to happiness in friendship, work and sex, from Washington Heights to Mexico, always changing, always strong. This is Audre Lorde's story. A rapturous, life-affirming autobiographical novel by the 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet', it changed the literary landscape.

'Her work shows us new ways to imagine the world ... so many themes of Audre's work have endured' Renni Eddo Lodge, author of Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

'I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration' Jackie Kay

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241351086

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 18mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 236g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration. At last I felt I fitted in.

    Jackie Kay

  • Excellent and evocative... personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness shine through the writing. Her experiences are painted with exquisite imagery

    The New York Times

  • Zami is important because of its descriptions of growing up a black lesbian feminist in the 1950s, with open, unapologetic, vivid descriptions of women's relationships

    Guardian

  • Her work is so quotable. It has the zeitgeist factor. Now, just as much as ever, we need the voice of Audre Lorde

    New Statesman

  • I have an Audre Lorde google alert on my phone. It helps confirm how relevant my favorite black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet remains today

    Huffington Post

  • Audre Lorde says it best

    Refinery29

  • Lorde's examination of her multiple outsiderness pried my sheltered mind wide open

    Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home (in ‘My Ten Favorite Books,’ New York Times Magazine)

  • Zami is just the best

    Vice

  • Zami made me realise that I was not alone ... that I, too, could be as courageous and as loud with my truths

    Elle Magazine

  • Zami feels larger than life - almost legendary - while remaining grounded, intimate and moving

    Cosmopolitan

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About the Author

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a writer, feminist and civil rights activist - or, as she famously put it, 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet'. Born in New York in 1934, she had her first poem published while she was still in high school. After stints as a factory worker, ghost writer, social worker, X-ray technician, medical clerk, and arts and crafts supervisor, she became a librarian in Manhattan and gradually rose to prominence as a poet, essayist and speaker, anthologised by Langston Hughes, lauded by Adrienne Rich, and befriended by James Baldwin. She was made Poet Laureate of New York State in 1991, when she was awarded the Walt Whitman prize; she was also awarded honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin and Haverford colleges. She died of cancer in 1992, aged 58.

Audre Lorde

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