These Hands I Know: African-American Writers on Family / Edition 1

by Afaa M. Weaver

Overview

These Hands I Know offers readers the first-ever intimate view of the inner workings of black family life from the point of view of prose and poetry writers. This collection of seventeen essays includes portraits of fathers, mothers, nieces, brothers, grandparents, husbands, wives, and daughters—in short the full spectrum of absolute humanity in contemporary black families. Here, in letter form, a man speaks to his aunt, the family matriarch. A daughter rejects her father’s ideas of African-American identity. A young woman holds her niece in her hands for the very first time. And a son faces his father as an old man and finally comes to terms with his failings. These Hands I Know seeks to gather a resolutely honest picture of family life, however painful or joyous that truth may be.

"Family life is an insistent vessel traveling the space of our struggles to love and to be loved. . . . Africans and their descendants in America have always been nothing more and nothing less than human. If anything is constant and universal, it is suffering—personal, social, and political. If these essays offer anything, it is the affirmation of humanity."—From the Introduction by Afaa Michael Weaver

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Contributors include:
Fred D'Aguiar
Tara Betts
Gwendolyn Brooks
Karen Chandler
Edwidge Danticat
Jarvis Q. DeBerry
Gerald Early
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Lise Funderburg
Walter Warren Harper
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Trent Masiki
E. Ethelbert Miller
Marilyn Nelson
Kalamu ya Salaam
Della Scott
Alice Walker

Also available by Afaa Michael Weaver
Multitudes: Poems Selected and New
• CUSA
• CUSA

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781889330723
Publisher:	Sarabande Books
Publication date:	08/01/2002
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
	Up the Hill	3
	Roy Lee DeBerry	21
	A Son in Shadow	31
	The Tail of Color	53
	Keziah	67
	My Country 'Tis of Thee	81
	Letter from Monticello	99
	A Curious Absence	107
	My Cleaning Lady	121
	From I'm Katherine: A Memoir	135
	Peace Offerings	163
	The Future in My Arms	177
	Making Noise	183
	Brothers and Sisters	199
	A Racial Education, Part Two	207
	Fathering Words	217
	Spirit Family of the Streets	229
	The Editor	237
	Contributors	239
	Acknowledgments	247

Editorial Reviews

In his introduction, Weaver (English, Simmons Coll.) states accurately that this collection reveals "the inner workings of African-American families." Included in this remarkable compilation are 17 pieces, ranging from first-person narratives to poetry and even epistles, that honor mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and other family members in honest and sometimes painful ways. The contributors include well-known authors like Gwendolyn Brooks, Karen Chandler, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Trent Masiki, and Alice Walker; newer writers Jarvis Q. DeBerry and Della Scott also offer testimonies. Throughout, the themes explored include death, abandonment, abuse, parenthood, segregation, racism, and sexism. What results is a series of intimate portraits that reveal family life as "an insistent vessel traveling the space of our struggles to love and be loved." Such struggle is inevitable, for as we see, not only must African American families address typical family problems but these problems are complicated by racism, economic struggle, and urban conflicts. Riveting and often emotionally charged, this work is highly recommended for all academic and large public libraries. Erica Swenson Danowitz, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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