You write in the foreword, “I believe Lorde penned these essays to explain the world to our children.” How would you describe the resonance of Lorde’s writing for mothers in particular?Ī mother, particularly, is often an emptying well. I believe some of the challenges arose when academia’s provided more roadblocks than resources to share/teach tools for liberation. I think Lorde was a master at using accessible language for complex social theories. What are some of the challenges of teaching Lorde to students? The tactic is designed to destroy our ability to constructively critique situations that in the long run disable our desires for collective learning and healing. Constantly being told your anger negates the root of the problem is not only alienating but blood-curdling. I turned to Lorde’s work as a resource because it was one of the few texts that speak to both rooms. I was facilitating in some of the most underserved areas of the city and traveling ten minutes away to private institutions. How has Audre Lorde’s work served as a resource to you as a teacher? Browne, who penned the foreword to the book, to answer a few questions about how Lorde has affected her life and work. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, published this month by Penguin Vitae, presents a collection of essays and speeches from the groundbreaking feminist writer. These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.

“ works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”- The New York Times Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.

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