Alice Walker's early story, "Everyday Use," has remained a cornerstone of her work. Her use of quilting as a metaphor for the creative legacy that African Americans inherited from their maternal ancestors changed the way we define art, women's culture, and African American lives. By putting African American women's voices at the center of the narrative for the first time, "Everyday Use" anticipated the focus of an entire generation of black women writers.
This casebook includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of Walker's life, an authoritative text of "Everyday Use" and of "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," an interview with Walker, six critical essays, and a bibliography. The contributors are Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Houston A. Baker, Jr., Thadious M. Davis, Margot Anne Kelley, John O'Brien, Elaine Showalter, and Mary Helen Washington.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780813520766
Media Type: Paperback
Publication Date: 06-01-1994
Pages: 240
Product Dimensions: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
Series: Women Writers: Texts and Contexts
About the Author
Barbara T. Christian is a professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Alice Walker and "The Color Purple"; Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers; and Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition 1892-1976.