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Frye Street & environs: The collected works of Marita Bonner
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
- GenresFictionAfrican American
286 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Marita Bonner
9 books9 followersMarita Bonner (June 16, 1899 – 1971) (also known as Marieta Bonner) was an African-American writer, essayist, and playwright who is commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also known as Marita Occomy, Marita Odette Bonner, Marita Odette Bonner Occomy, Marita Bonner Occomy, Joseph Maree Andrew. On December 29, 1921 along with 15 other women, she chartered the Iota Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
(from Wikipedia)
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 20, 2024
Out of four total proletarian women writer’s short story collections I’ve read this year,
Frye Street and Environs by Marita Bonner was by far the best. I just found the writing consistently captivating, there was no “half these stories were duds” feeling like in others. Her best story- The Whipping, was pulled out for an anthology called Writing Red, and I see why. I read it out loud to J and remembered how powerful it was both emotionally and politically. Bonner’s writing style reminded me a little bit of Zora Neale Hurston’s in that she writes in the local dialect, and they wrote at similar times although Hurston was much more prolific while Bonner stopped writing while raising her kids. This is also a theme I noticed in mid-century proletarian women writers, they are less famous because of content and also because they weren’t able to write as much due to struggling in day jobs and raising families. Bonner was unique in both of her “genre” circles as one of the few who wrote about the working class in the African American writers sphere, and as one of the few African Americans in the proletarian fiction genre.
The book also feels a bit ethnographic and in the introduction we learn that the stories are based upon her observations of her neighborhood in Chicago.
Somehow these stories contain themes and endings with a lot of death and murder without being depressing or demobilizing. Instead they fill you with an emotional roller coaster and empathy for the character’s decisions as well as a fire burning about the injustice and suffering created by society’s structures. As the introduction describes better than me “The black working mothers of Bonner’s Chicago stories battle against poverty, gangs, and prejudice but too often find that their children are destroyed…”
Should be part of any high school literary curriculum.
Frye Street and Environs by Marita Bonner was by far the best. I just found the writing consistently captivating, there was no “half these stories were duds” feeling like in others. Her best story- The Whipping, was pulled out for an anthology called Writing Red, and I see why. I read it out loud to J and remembered how powerful it was both emotionally and politically. Bonner’s writing style reminded me a little bit of Zora Neale Hurston’s in that she writes in the local dialect, and they wrote at similar times although Hurston was much more prolific while Bonner stopped writing while raising her kids. This is also a theme I noticed in mid-century proletarian women writers, they are less famous because of content and also because they weren’t able to write as much due to struggling in day jobs and raising families. Bonner was unique in both of her “genre” circles as one of the few who wrote about the working class in the African American writers sphere, and as one of the few African Americans in the proletarian fiction genre.
The book also feels a bit ethnographic and in the introduction we learn that the stories are based upon her observations of her neighborhood in Chicago.
Somehow these stories contain themes and endings with a lot of death and murder without being depressing or demobilizing. Instead they fill you with an emotional roller coaster and empathy for the character’s decisions as well as a fire burning about the injustice and suffering created by society’s structures. As the introduction describes better than me “The black working mothers of Bonner’s Chicago stories battle against poverty, gangs, and prejudice but too often find that their children are destroyed…”
Should be part of any high school literary curriculum.
December 21, 2021
It was genius writing to be sure, and it was fantastic to read the work of a black woman writer. I find I prefer short story collections with a variety of authors, though. The themes can get to be redundant, otherwise.
March 12, 2013
Amazing writer one of my favorites of ALL TIME!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews