Gertrude Bell (1868 – 1926) was an English archeologist, writer, and translator. She traveled extensively in the Middle East and advocated for Arab nationalism before settling permanently in Baghdad and contributing to the nation building of the Kingdom of Iraq.
She published several books about her travels and her archeological excavations. She corresponded extensively with many friends, colleagues and policy makers during her whole life. Read More→
Mary Louise Booth (1831–1889), was an American writer and a prominent translator from French to English. At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, she translated the French anti-slavery advocate Agénor de Gasparin’s seminal book Uprising of a Great People (1861) for it to be quickly distributed in the United States.
She became the first editor of the American fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar in 1867.
Born in Millville (now Yaphank) in the State of New York, Booth was of French descent on her mother’s side. After moving to New York City at the age of eighteen, she wrote tales and sketches for newspapers and magazines and also worked as a translator. She wrote History of the City of New York (1859), which became a bestseller. Read More→
Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, 1931 – 2019) is celebrated for her groundbreaking novels and nonfiction that examine the Black experience in America.
Her writings have reached millions of readers, and she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for the “visionary force and poetic import” of her work. [above right, Toni Morrison’s author photo on The Bluest Eye, 1970; photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
Following is an overview of her career as an editor and publisher, which isn’t as widely known despite being hugely influential in the contemporary realm of Black literature and the publishing world. Read More→
This article is reprinted with permission from Feminism for All. Women were oppressed in patriarchal civilizations the world over. And women the world refused those systems and structures. Women the world over rose up in rebellion against their oppression.
They chaffed against the private domestic sphere before leaving it. They found ways to acquire knowledge that was forbidden to their sex and gender. They defied the odds to take ruling power from men, or ruled alongside and equal to their husbands. (Shown above right, Pandita Ramabai.)
During the colonial/imperialist era, they joined and were welcomed into anti-colonialist movements. Later, they came to together and forged feminist movements to throw off the shackles of domination and oppression that tried to contain and silence them. Read More→
Chief Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (1931 – 1993, familiarly known as Flora Nwapa, was a Nigerian-born author, poet, short story writer, and activist.
She was known as the “Mother of African Literature,” and was the first African woman author whose writing published in England.
Here’s more about her writing, including the influences behind her debut novel, Efuru. Read More→
Who would have ever imagined that librarians would become targets in contemporary culture wars? Most of today’s battles are over banning and censorship, as we know. (Shown at right, Belle da Costa Greene)
And though book banning is nothing new, it wasn’t the primary concern of the librarians highlight here today. They were blazing trails in other ways (you’ll frequently see “the first” here). All of these professionals were visionaries who elevated the role of libraries as cultural hearts of communities.
These librarians proudly built diversity and cultural awareness into the fabric of what has evolved into the contemporary library. And that’s something that can’t be unraveled. Read More→
Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poetry was first published in NAACP’s The Crisis in 1916, and was subsequently included in the premier Black journals and anthologies of the 1920s.
Georgia was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s. Presented here is the full text of An Autumn Love Cycle, her third collection, published in 1928.
Though Black women’s poetry was regularly featured in the era’s periodicals, an entire collection by one writer was a rarity. Georgia published three poetry collections in the span of six years; one more was to come decades later. Read More→
If you love learning about fascinating women of the past, but aren’t inclined to read full-scale biographies that take you from the second they were born (or earlier) to the minute they died, another fantastic route into their lives is via novelizations, also known as biofiction.
This type of novel usually focuses on a particularly interesting portion of a fascinating real-life person’s journey. This seems to be a growing genre, and when done well, as in the small sampling following, is entertaining as well as illuminating.
To create these novelizations successfully requires a delicate balance involving deep research and creative license. Here’s a small sampling. Read More→
