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A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

Audre Lorde,

Sonia Sanchez (Foreword)

4.37 · Rating details · 470 ratings · 66 reviews

"Lorde's words — on race, cancer, intersectionality, parenthood, injustice — burn with relevance 25 years after her death." — O, The Oprah Magazine

Winner of the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation National Book Award, this path-breaking collection of essays is a clarion call to build communities that nurture our spirit. Lorde announces the need for a radical politics of "Lorde's words — on race, cancer, intersectionality, parenthood, injustice — burn with relevance 25 years after her death." — O, The Oprah Magazine

Winner of the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation National Book Award, this path-breaking collection of essays is a clarion call to build communities that nurture our spirit. Lorde announces the need for a radical politics of intersectionality while struggling to maintain her own faith as she wages a battle against liver cancer. From reflections on her struggle with the disease to thoughts on lesbian sexuality and African-American identity in a straight white man's world, Lorde's voice remains enduringly relevant in today's political landscape.
Those who practice and encourage social justice activism frequently quote her exhortation, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." In addition to the journal entries of "A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer," this edition includes an interview, "Sadomasochism: Not About Condemnation," and three essays, "I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities," "Apartheid U.S.A.," and "Turning the Beat Around: Lesbian Parenting 1986," as well as a new Foreword by Sonia Sanchez.

"You don't read Audre Lorde, you feel her." — Essence

"Lorde's timeless prose in this collection provides contemporary social justice warriors the language, strategies, and lessons around resistance, through the power of intersectionality, a Pan-African vision, and — ultimately — through the power of love and radical self-care." — NBC News

"When I don't know what to do, I turn to the Lorde." — Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Bitch Media

"Whenever my mind is heavy with questions and my heart thirsts for nourishment, I turn to the writing of Audre Lorde. Every time I revisit the words of Audre Lorde, I marvel over how relevant they continue to be." — AfterEllen.com

"The self-described black feminist lesbian mother poet used a mixture of prose, theory, poetry, and experience to interrogate oppressions and uplift marginalized communities. She was one of the first black feminists to target heteronormativity, and to encourage black feminists to expand their understanding of erotic pleasure. She amplified anti-oppression, even as breast cancer ravaged her ailing body." — Evette Dionne, Bustle Magazine

"This was my first time reading Audre Lorde (finally!) and now I can't wait to devour everything she ever wrote. This was the kind of book that you end up highlighting so many great quotes, words you want to memorize, apply, breathe. Empowering read." — Litsy ...more

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Hardcover, 144 pages

Published September 13th 2017 by Ixia Press (first published April 1988)

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Aug 01, 2017 Krystal rated it it was amazing

This book was a revelation of timeless brilliance from an intersectional feminist I can only strive to take lessons from! Highly recommended for anyone committed to social justice efforts!

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Mar 28, 2019 Nabilah Firdaus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reading-challenge, non-fiction, classis-modern-classics

Another incredible collection examining sex industry, apartheid, lesbian parenting and reality of cancer. Bold, transformative and powerful. I can't recommend Audre Lorde strongly enough. She has always held a special place in my heart with her elegant and simulating messages of racism and women empowerment. One of the most powerful civil right activists I've ever known - she is very focused and has an effective clarity on what she wants to achieve and strategically transforming it into a ...more

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Aug 22, 2014 H added it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

I want to write down everything I know about being afraid, but I'd probably never have enough time to write anything else. Afraid is a country where they issue us passports at birth and hope we never seek citizenship in any other country. The face of afraid keeps changing constantly, and I can count on that change. I need to travel light and fast, and there's a lot of baggage I'm going to have to leave behind me. Jettison cargo. (55, 2/18/1984)

I am excited by these women, by their blossoming I want to write down everything I know about being afraid, but I'd probably never have enough time to write anything else. Afraid is a country where they issue us passports at birth and hope we never seek citizenship in any other country. The face of afraid keeps changing constantly, and I can count on that change. I need to travel light and fast, and there's a lot of baggage I'm going to have to leave behind me. Jettison cargo. (55, 2/18/1984)

I am excited by these women, by their blossoming sense of identity as they're beginning to say in one way or another, "Let us be ourselves now as we define us. We are not a figment of your imagination or an exotic answer to your desires. We are not some button on the pocket of your longing." (57, 3/23/1984)

I am saving my life by using my life in the service of what must be done. (59, 6/7/1984)

We all have to die at least once. Making that death useful would be winning for me. I wasn't supposed to exist anyway, not in any meaningful way in this fucked-up whiteboys' world. (61, 6/10/1984)

(Of course, all poets learn about feeling as children in our native tongue, and the psycho-social strictures and emotional biases of that language pass over into hwo we think about feeling for the rest of our lives.) (66, 10/10/1984)

As an African-American woman, I feel the tragedy of being an oppressed hyphenated person in America, of having no land to be our primary teacher. And this distorts us in so many ways. (66, 10/10/1984)

It is a matter of learning languages, or of learning to use them with precision to do what needs to be done with them, and it is the Blanchie in myself to whom I need to speak with such urgency. It's one of the great things friends are for each other when you've been very close for a long time.
And of course cancer is political--look at how many of our comrades have died of it during the last ten years! As warriors, our job is to actively and consciously survive it for as long as possible, remembering that in order to win, the aggressor must conquer, but the resisters need only survive. Our battle is to define survival in ways that are acceptable and nourishing to us, meaning (98) with substance and style. (99, 4/20/1986)

When I write my own Book of the Dead, my own Book of Life, I want to celebrate being alive to do it even while I acknowledge the painful savor uncertainty lends to my living. I use the energy of dreams that are now impossible, not totally believing in them nor their poewr to become real, but recognizing them as templates for a future within which my labors can play a part. I am freer to choose what I will devote my energies toward and what I will leave for another lifetime, thanking the goddess for the strength to perceive that I can choose, despite obstacles. (119, 11/12/1986)

I do not find it useful any long to speculate upon cancer as a political weapon. But I'm not being paranoid when I say my cancer is as political as if some CIA agent brushed past me in the A train on march 15, 1965 and air-injected me with a long-fused cancer virus. Or even if it is only that I stood in their wind to do my work and the billows flayed me What possible choices do most of us have in the air we breathe and the water we must drink?
Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time and the arena and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle wherever we are standing. It does not matter too much if it is in the radiation lab or a doctor's office or the telephone company, the streets, the welfare department, or the classroom. The real blessing is to be able to use whoever I am wherever I am, in concert with as many others as possible, or alone if needs be. (120, 11/13/1986)

Five million people in the U.S.--or two percent of the population of this country--are actively living with cancer. If you apply that percentage to the Black community--where it is probably higher bcause of the rising incidence of cancers without a corresponding rise in the cure rate--if we take that percentage into the Black population of 22 million, then every single day there are at least half a million Black people in the U.S. shopping in supermarkets, catching subways, grooming mules, objecting in PTA meetings, standing in a welfare line, teaching Sunday school, walking in the streets at noon looking for work, scrubbing a kitchen floor, all carrying within our bodies the seeds of a destruction not of our own choosing. It is a destruction we can keep from defining our living for as long as possible, if not our dying. Each oen of us must define for ourselves what substance and shape we wish to give the life we have left. (126, 11/18/1986)

I do not think about my death as being imminent, but I live my days against a background noise of mortality and constant uncertainty. Learning not to crumple before these uncertainties fuels my resolve to print myself upon the texture of each day fully rather than forever. (127, 11/19/1986)

To acknowledge privilege is the first step in making it available for wider use. Each of us is blessed in some particular way, whether we recognize our blessings our not. And each one of us, somewhere in our lives, must clear a space within that blessing where she can call upon whatever resources are available to her in the name of something that must be done. (130, 12/15/1986) ...more

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Aug 24, 2017 Mary Clare rated it it was amazing

Full review!

Format: eBook ARC from NetGalley

In this collection of essays and journal entries, originally published in 1988, Audre Lorde writes frankly, clearly, and with full humanity about her experience as a Black Lesbian woman and her second experience with cancer.

My initial impulse is to call this collection something like "transcendent" but honestly, that would not be accurate. Because while it has the insight, power, and clarity of a work that someone might describe as transcendent, that Full review!

Format: eBook ARC from NetGalley

In this collection of essays and journal entries, originally published in 1988, Audre Lorde writes frankly, clearly, and with full humanity about her experience as a Black Lesbian woman and her second experience with cancer.

My initial impulse is to call this collection something like "transcendent" but honestly, that would not be accurate. Because while it has the insight, power, and clarity of a work that someone might describe as transcendent, that word would really mis-categorize this work. This is not a work meant to go beyond or transcend anything, but rather to shed an unflinching light on the reality of Lorde's experience. If this book is anything, it is very clearly grounded in reality and Lorde's ability to describe that reality in such beautiful and sometimes harsh terms illuminates the truths that she wants to highlight.

There is no hiding from the truths in this collection because the truths are not masked by any kind of metaphor and they are not softened by language. Lorde is demanding that readers understand what she is trying to say, she demands that readers recognize the truth of her experience (and the experience of other Black and Lesbian women in the USA and across the world) and that readers recognize the ways that they may be complicit in that social structure. She stands in front of you (and audiences within the stories of this book) and demands to know where exactly the consideration of her and other women like her is. Where are the black women? Have you considered how people of color have been made to suffer for you to stand where you are standing? How have you benefitted from racism, ableism, sexism, and heterosexism and are your current actions helping prop up those systems and tear them down?

Lorde demands that readers consider these questions, demands that I consider these questions.

I will also say what should really go unsaid, that Lorde is a truly spectacular writer with the ability to manipulate readers' emotions with razor-like precision. Though this is a skill she must have fine-tuned in her poetry, it also shines clearly through in this collection.

Although I received this book as an advanced copy for the new edition coming out this September, I will be purchasing a hard copy of the new edition when it becomes available. I gave this book a 5 out of 5 stars and I am excited to continue to explore Lorde's work.

Note: some of my reviews contain spoilers! ...more

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Aug 05, 2017 Andre rated it it was amazing

This is a updated and reissued version of her 1988 collection of essays. What's new here is an introduction by Sonia Sanchez, an interview about sadomasochism and three essays along with the original Burst of Light: Living with Cancer journal entries. This book illuminates her struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia and the liver cancer afflicting her body. And she put all of these struggles on the same plain, seeing them as equal. "Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling ...more

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Sep 01, 2017 Gabriela Caballero rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I feel so humbled and grateful that Audre Lorde shared some of her writing while battling cancer. This was an emotional and powerful read.

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Mar 21, 2018 Misse Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lgbtq, social-justice, os-reading-room, feminist-movement

Phenomenal read! Very relevant to our current political, social, and economic climate even today. The tone feels as if it were written presently. A beautiful forward by Sonia Sanchez.

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Dec 21, 2019 Corie Sanford rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I wish I could give 7 stars.
The best part of this collection are the journal excerpts detailing the years surrounding the reemergence of Lorde's cancer. She articulates with power and grace and love the difficulty of facing one's own death, her determination to bring all her selves to the battle with cancer, same as the battle against racism, homophobia, sexism. She's a titan, and one whose feet I'd like to remain sitting at as I learn how to go about living my own life. Read this.

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Sep 30, 2019 Carrie Kellenberger rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: alternative-healing, poetry, feminism, women, health, lgbt, autobiographies, chronic-illness, non-fiction, writing

This book was such a surprise. A Burst of Light is written by a Black Lesbian feminist and it includes a collection of her essays about fighting for civil rights and quite a bit about her journey with cancer. Her short essays on continuing her work with civil rights while coping with her own mortality and the final consequences of her fight with liver cancer are truly remarkable. Her essays really are bursts of light.

This book is a clear proclamation of intersectional feminism in its finest ...more

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Aug 25, 2019 Tzipora rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2019, disability-chronic-illness, essays, feminism, nonfiction, biography-and-memoir, health-memoir, ebooks, library-books, lgbt

It should be no surprise, I suppose that a poet is able to write so aptly, so beautifully, in such a relatable way about living with terminal illness. It was this that I got so much out of while reading this book, living as I am, too, with a life limiting illness. I’m not even sure Audre herself realized while writing it how much her words would mean not just to the black women facing cancer she so hoped to help but also to women from other backgrounds with completely different illnesses but I It should be no surprise, I suppose that a poet is able to write so aptly, so beautifully, in such a relatable way about living with terminal illness. It was this that I got so much out of while reading this book, living as I am, too, with a life limiting illness. I’m not even sure Audre herself realized while writing it how much her words would mean not just to the black women facing cancer she so hoped to help but also to women from other backgrounds with completely different illnesses but I think it’s clear she’s more than achieved that goal she states in the book she’s living for. And what a testament to the power of her words that I found myself moved and repeatedly highlighting them, as someone who wasn’t even born until a few years after they were written.

This was my first time reading a full work of Lorde’s and I’ve seen it said not to start here and maybe that’s true for most but it worked for me. The opening interview is utterly dated and while the other pieces were interesting, clearly it was the title portion, the passages from her journals about the reemergence of her cancer and the choices she makes and things she faces that spoke to me the most.

Earlier in the book I found myself reflecting on feminism today and how I wished Audre was still alive because I wanted to write her and ask her about her thoughts. I told a friend I so envied the kind of community of strong women she had surrounded herself with, what a nurturing and empowering and intentional black, feminist, lesbian community she had. That how I remember being a kid and looking to second wave feminism and the community aspect of it and I suppose a part of me just took for granted that one day I could have that. Yet while somewhere in the normalization and spread of feminism it’s in ways become shallower and while we are more intersectional we also may be more divisive than ever. Maybe it’s the internet, since it seems to be the primary space we meet now. I couldn’t help but wonder what Audre would think of feminism in today’s world. Or where the LGBTQ+ movement has gone and all its achieved. And being sick especially, I only wish I had the kind of community Lorde writes so poignantly of fighting her own urge towards isolationism (something I know far too well) to be with and to rely on.

So this book gave me lots to think on and the second half, the Burst or Light portion was far and above the rest for me and spoke to me deeply. I was on a library waitlist for months for my copy too so I’m glad so many others are reading these words. Im glad I read them too. ...more

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Sep 07, 2017 Kitty Wenham rated it it was amazing

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinions on the book, which remain entirely my own.

'A Burst Of Light' is an updated and reissued version of Audre Lorde's 1988 collection of essays and journal entries of the same name. They address a wide range of issues such as feminism, racism, sadomasochism, and living with cancer.

'A Burst of Light' begins with an interesting interview with Audre Lorde on her views of pornography and ...more

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Jul 12, 2018 Cathryn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ontd-2018

Read this for the ONTD 2018 challenge. The theme was to read a book published in 1934 or written by an author born in 1934.

Being interested in intersectional feminism, as soon as I saw that Audre Lorde was born in 1934, I wanted to read one of her essay collections. Unfortunately, I've purchased far too many books recently and I'm trying to be a little more financially responsible: this book was the only work by Audre Lorde available at my public library.

I don't think that this anthology is the ...more

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Jan 02, 2019 Nadav David rated it it was amazing

I had previously read bits and pieces of Audre Lorde, or seen her work referenced in other places, but this was my first time diving in. These essays were fascinating, beautifully written and inspiring. I found myself re-reading and marking down dozens of paragraphs throughout “Apartheid USA” and “A Burst of Light” (just see my Goodreads quotes page!) - such touching and formative writing for our time and for our movements, many of which continue to be led by powerful Black women.

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Aug 05, 2019 Jay Michelle Williams rated it really liked it

Mother Audre, I was afraid to speak my mind, but you taught me many ways to channel my creative energy. When I look at the stars, I know that you're the brightest--smiling at me from afar. Your final essay, A Burst Of Light made me cry; I felt your pain and your determination not to let it steal from you physically or energetically. I miss you. We shall meet again.

I look forward to reading more of your work.

Yours Truly,

Jay Miche.

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Sep 26, 2017 Monika rated it really liked it

This was my first time reading Audre Lorde (finally!) and now I can't wait to devour everything she ever wrote. This was the kind of book that you end up highlighting so many great quotes, words you want to memorize, remember, apply, breathe. Lorde shines a light on white feminism and shows us how to persist when the struggle never seems to end - not only as an intersectional feminist, an activist, but also as a person fighting cancer. Empowering read.

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Aug 07, 2017 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

A reissuing of Lorde's essays including journal entries over three years when she found out she had liver cancer. Lorde's words, as ever, are poignant and hit you at the bone. Her words embrace you and enlighten you and is accessible in a way some essayists weren't always at the time. And of course what she says stands true to this day. Required reading.

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Oct 06, 2019 Michelle Shneyder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

She has some spicy thoughts as expected of such a revolutionary person. I certainly don’t fall in step with some of her logic but I really respect the way she dissects issues and even dissects herself. This book of essays allowed me a look into her mind, into her most fragile moments and I finished it feeling very close to her.

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Aug 09, 2019 savannah rated it really liked it

”I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

4.5 stars

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Oct 30, 2017 Erika W. Smith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2017, released-in-2017

this is a reissue and it's great! I forgot that I'd actually read this before, in college - I think as individual essays instead of as a collection, though. The one thing I'd suggest is that if you haven't read Lorde before to start with the final essay (really a series of diary entries), "A Burst Of Light," then go back to read the ones at the front of the book.

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Sep 29, 2017 Hannah rated it it was amazing

(I received a free copy from Net Gallery in exchange for an honest review.)

A beautifully personal and deeply poetic collection of writing that gives you a vastly important perspective on a variety of important subjects, I loved it

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Jun 24, 2019 Robin Mandell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Oh Audre, Audre. I can't help thinking that it is good you are not here to see how little has changed, especially for women of color.

Audre Lorde was a brilliant writer. Enough said.

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Jan 03, 2020 axmed rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I am not sure if there is a difference between the first edition and the 2017 edition which i listened to, but really loved it and was inspired by it quite a lot. Listening to Audre Lorde's words in her journal while she was battling cancer was very special and i'm once again in awe of her honesty and vulnerability and strength and her sharp analyses and i could go on and on. Please read or listen to this book.

Axox

p.s. the interview where she shares her thoughts on sadomasochism is very ...more

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Feb 24, 2018 Juli Rahel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The title for this collection of essays is from Audre Lorde’s poem ‘Never To Dream of Spiders’, of which ‘a burst of light’ is the last line. This has always been one of my favourite poems by Lorde, despite the fact it partially makes me sad. I always feel like there is a sense of foreboding doom, of misery and death there. And yet the poem also holds beautiful memories of love and togetherness and a sense of perseverance and strength. The reason I want to explain my thought on the poem is The title for this collection of essays is from Audre Lorde’s poem ‘Never To Dream of Spiders’, of which ‘a burst of light’ is the last line. This has always been one of my favourite poems by Lorde, despite the fact it partially makes me sad. I always feel like there is a sense of foreboding doom, of misery and death there. And yet the poem also holds beautiful memories of love and togetherness and a sense of perseverance and strength. The reason I want to explain my thought on the poem is because I think they reflect on A Burst of Light itself as well. The poem’s ‘condemnation within my blood’ refers to Lorde’s battle with cancer, which plays a big role in the essays in this book. However, Lorde’s life was also one marked both by struggle as well as achievement, condemnation and recognition, rejection and acceptance.

Her whole life Audre Lorde fought, and the essays collected in A Burst of Light are a testimony to that. ‘Sadomasocism: Not About Condemnation’ shows Lorde addressing female sexuality, as well as the power play between the sexes both within and without the bedroom. In ‘I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities’ she discusses her identity as both a black woman and a lesbian and the conflict between those two identities. ‘Apartheid U.S.A’ shows both Lorde’s deep care for women and oppressed people around the world as well as the anger that kept her going. Her comparisons between her America and the South African Apartheid regime she sees on the TV are sharp but true. In ‘Turning the Beat Around: Lesbian Parenting 1986’ she discusses the pitfalls of parenting, especially those that appear in your way if society looks sideways at you. The largest part of A Burst of Light is made up of the eponymous ‘A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer’. This is truly where I started understanding the drive that helped Lorde to write and fight so. Her desire to own her own body and to be herself, to be able to live and love freely, it all comes out in these journal entries as we follow Lorde from her diagnosis through different treatments and different moods.

Lorde’s writing is inspiring, especially when she writes about the civil rights movement and feminism. It is fascinating to read the constant work she does, the effort she puts into considering and debating everything, assessing the world we live in and trying to change it for the better. But reading her work has a very different effect on me than, for example, reading Gloria Steinem’s work. Although I like her poetry I have always struggled a little bit with Audre Lorde, and that is also true of A Burst of Light. When I read Steinem’s On the Road there were a lot of things that I could relate to. That is not the case with Audre Lorde. Living as a black, gay woman in America, Lorde had experiences that I will never have to face, that I can only appreciate from a remove but not really identify with. To pretend I could would almost be an affront to Lorde’s work, and so reading A Burst of Light was very much a learning opportunity. I don’t understand all of her anger because it is rooted in how the world was fundamentally different for her than it is for me, but by learning about her I also learn about the experiences of countless women across the world right now. Feminism still has a long road to go to becoming truly intersectional, but by reading A Burst of Light I have found myself moving further down that road.

For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2... ...more

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Dec 19, 2019 Vannessa rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019

A good read

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Jan 29, 2018 Luke Hartman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

When it comes to those of us who are on the spectrum of injustice (so everyone minus cis straight white men) – I find it depressingly sad that those of us near the top who as Lorde says, are marginal in only one respect, can so easily disregard those of us who have experienced differing and always worse degrees of the oppression we are working to alleviate. The struggles for social justice are not isolated. Feminism spearheaded by white women is going to get about as far as an LGBT movement When it comes to those of us who are on the spectrum of injustice (so everyone minus cis straight white men) – I find it depressingly sad that those of us near the top who as Lorde says, are marginal in only one respect, can so easily disregard those of us who have experienced differing and always worse degrees of the oppression we are working to alleviate. The struggles for social justice are not isolated. Feminism spearheaded by white women is going to get about as far as an LGBT movement spearheaded by white gays – not very far at all.

In 130 short pages, Audre, a proud Afro-Caribbean lesbian can certainly pack a punch and drill this very point home. Not only do I respect deeply the work and trials she faced in her life, but I respect the resilience and unwavering characteristics that were more than evident in the way she presented herself, and beliefs. Amidst great struggle, both personal and social – her work while based on who she was – was completely directed at aiding others who shared her struggle or were doing worse. If a black lesbian can identify multiple times her economic and geographic privilege – I think the rest of us can own up to the mountain of comfort we love to hide behind.

I also admire her courage. I can’t even imagine what it was like to be so proud about being who you are and pronouncing who you love in the mid 20th century, and the public harassment she faced on the daily. I can’t imagine facing that with the grace she did – especially considering that courage seemed to fail me over a series of years in the 21st century. Without her example, her work and her influence – a great many of us LGBT people may not have had the privilege to live in a world that may be an inch closer to fully accepting us as who we are – which is different than wanting to be the same.

So from all of us in the margins (deep in or toeing the line) – thank you Audre. Thank you for living without fear. Thank you for willing to be proud of your differences and countering the danger of heteronormativity. Thank you for standing by the importance of intersectionality. Thank you for loving so deeply. Thank you for your fire in life and in verse. Thank you for your legacy. I only hope we and specifically I can do you justice in the way I live. ...more

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May 10, 2017 Columbus rated it really liked it

Audre Lorde was a brilliant and courageous Black Lesbian/Feminist/Poet who died heroically and much too young battling both liver and breast cancer.

This incredible book of essays has a fine foreword by Sister Sonia Sanchez, where she sort of link the issues expounded on by Lorde during her radical and political years to the issues we face today.

There’s also an essay on S/M: Sadomasochism: Not about condemnation; another on Apartheid in USA; one on Lesbian parenting circa 1986; and, Black Women ...more

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Feb 05, 2015 Daniel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There are so many quotable quotes in these essays.
Recently, I've been going out of my way to read books that are far from my norm. So reading a book from a lesbian feminist seemed like a good and random place to start.
Her essay on Apartheid USA is particularly haunting and quite poignant given current race relations in the USA. Not much has changed since 1988 when this was published and it hurts to realise that.
I found myself strongly nodding in approval on her views on Pan-Africanism and ...more

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Mar 30, 2018 Dwight Davis rated it really liked it

The first few essays in this volume felt a little bit dated, more beholden to time and place than Lorde’s other essays in Sister Outsider that felt vital and urgent even now. But the title essay, really the sequel to Lorde’s Cancer Journals detailing the return of her cancer, was beautiful and moving. In it, Lorde reflects on sickness as a Black Lesbian, on what it means to be a Black woman in the world and to be connected to other Black women, what it means to be a mother, a partner, a poet, a ...more

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Sep 14, 2017 Angie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017, 4-stars, non-fiction, net-galley, memoirs, feminism-and-women-centered, reviewed

A great and timeless piece by one of our most treasured feminists and writers. Grounded in reality and highlighting the importance of intersectionality, this is a reissue of her 1988 essay and includes her life living with liver cancer that led to her death. There is so much of importance packed into this little book, but ultimately the essays surrounding her cancer will likely stick with me the longest.

I received a digital copy of this book at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an ...more

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Jun 21, 2018 veronica rated it it was amazing

Audre Lorde was revolutionary, a warrior, and a "burst of light" herself. Her writing is fluid and beautiful, and I respect her deeply for always being raw, honest, and vulnerable in her writing. She is a champion for Women of color everywhere, and as a fellow Black lesbian trying to make it in America, this book taught me so much. The topics she spoke about in this book can still very much apply to the political state of America today, and we can learn SO much from Ms. Lorde. She will forever ...more

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About Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde

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Audre Lorde is a revolutionary Black feminist. Lorde's poetry was published very regularly during the 1960s — in Langston Hughes' 1962 New Negro Poets, USA; in several foreign anthologies; and in black literary magazines. During this time, she was politically active in civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements. Her first volume of poetry, The First Cities (1968), was published by the Poet's ...more

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“The tensions created inside me by the contradictions is another source of energy and learning. I have always known I learn my most lasting lessons about difference by closely attending the ways in which the differences inside me lie down together.” — 2 likes

“I respect the time I spend each day treating my body, and I consider it part of my political work. It is possible to have some conscious input into our physical processes–not expecting the impossible, but allowing for the unexpected–a kind of training in self-love and physical resistance.” — 1 likes

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