The women

Resource Information

The work The women represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in DC Public Library System. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The women

Statement of responsibility

Hilton Als

Creator

• Als, Hilton

Subject

• African American women -- Intellectual life
• African Americans -- Race identity
• American literature -- African American authors | History and criticism | Theory, etc
• Authorship -- Sex differences
• African American women -- Biography
• Identity (Psychology)
• Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
• Gender identity -- United States

Genre

• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

• Daring, fiercely original, and brilliant, The Women is at once a memoir, a psychological study, a sociopolitical manifesto, and an incisive adventure in literary criticism. It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects. Als begins with his mother, a self-described "Negress, " who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender. He goes on to ask who the mother of Malcolm X was, and shows how her mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism. He describes how the brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men. Finally, he portrays the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation
• Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form all its own

Biography type

contains biographical information

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

810.9896

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction