Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers.edited by Rosemarie Robotham Basic Civitas Books, December 2002 $25.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-465-07062-0 Mending the Worm is noteworthy for bringing together a cadre of black authors (both established and new) writing about the most influential aspect of black culture--the black family. As she did with her first anthology, The Bluelight Corner, Rosemarie Robotham (author of Zachary's Wings and coauthor of Spirits of the Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade slave trade Capturing, selling, and buying of slaves. Slavery has existed throughout the world from ancient times, and trading in slaves has been equally universal. Slaves were taken from the Slavs and Iranians from antiquity to the 19th century, from the sub-Saharan in the Seventeenth Century), lends a qualitative sensibility to her choice of pieces for this collection. From the preface by Maya Angelou  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled until (UTC) due to vandalism. ("Great Expectations"), to the foreword by Pearl Cleage Pearl Cleage (born 7 December, 1948) is an [African-American]] poet, essayist, and journalist living in Atlanta, Georgia. An activist on issues including AIDS, women's rights, and black life, her first novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day ("Reflections on Family") and the editor's introduction ("Making Up the Truth"), the message is clear: this is black people telling their own stories of family. "Connected by blood and bone and memory," says Cleage, "a family is always greater than the details that come to define it." Robotham reminds us: "Marginalized as we were in the societies of the New World, Black writers were faced with `making up' the truth, literally writing ourselves and our experiences into being." Thus as Angelou notes, "In the struggle for the soul of our families, Black writers have a special role to play." Through the five sections of the anthology (five prisms, if you will)--First Light, Myth-Making, The Shifting Self, A Taste of Eden and Mending the World--we see the black family and its complexities, reflecting joy and pain. Participants in this "telling" include Jamaica Kincaid Jamaica Kincaid (b. Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson, 25 May 1949 in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda) is an American novelist, gardener, and gardening writer. She lives with her family at North Bennington in the U.S. state of Vermont. ("The Circling Hand"); Olive Senior Olive Marjorie Senior (b. 1941 in Trelawny, Jamaica) is a Jamaican poet and short story writer currently living in Canada. She went to Montego Bay High School For Girls, then at age 19 joined the staff of the Jamaica Gleaner in Kingston. ("Bright Thursday"); Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat (born January 19, 1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti) is a Haitian-born American author. Early life When she was two years old, her father André immigrated to New York from Haiti, to be followed two years later by her mother Rose. ("The Book of the Dead"); Martha Southgate ("Show Business"); Breena Clarke ("The Drill"); Debra Dickerson ("Who Shot Johnny?"); Paule Marshall ("Sleeper's Wake"); Charles Johnson ("China"); Rosemarie Robotham ("Counting Breaths"); Alice Walker ("The Two of Us"); and Rebecca Walker ("The Good Daughter"). Mending the World is a treasure with stories as varied as the people they represent. As Robotham affirms, this anthology's "gift" is "to transform how we see our kinship experiences by creating a lens through which we view today's Black family anew." It is a gift we gladly accept. --Denolyn Carroll is the assistant managing editor at Essence. |
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