Danzy Senna
Autore di Caucasia
Sull'Autore
Danzy Senna hold the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Fonte dell'immagine: Eye on Books
Opere di Danzy Senna
Opere correlate
Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience (2006) — Collaboratore — 75 copie
Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women (2003) — Collaboratore — 46 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1970
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Istruzione
- Stanford University (BA)
University of California, Irvine (MFA, creative writing) - Attività lavorative
- novelist
essayist - Relazioni
- Howe, Fanny (mother)
Senna, Carl (father) - Organizzazioni
- College of the Holy Cross (Jenks Chair of Contemporary American/Letters)
- Premi e riconoscimenti
- Whiting Writers' Award (2002)
John Dos Passos Prize (2016) - Agente
- Amanda Urban (ICM)
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 6
- Opere correlate
- 8
- Utenti
- 1,507
- Popolarità
- #17,058
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 35
- ISBN
- 54
- Lingue
- 4
- Preferito da
- 5
I don't want to talk too much about the story because I don't think I can do that without ruining some of its surprises, but I will share the setup. We see this story through the eyes of Birdie Lee, the youngest daughter of an interracial couple in 1960s Boston. Her parents are both involved in the Black Power movement, her Black father as an academic and her White mother as a committed if erratic revolutionary running from her Boston Brahmin past. Birdie and her sister Cole are collateral damage as their parents' marriage and the Black Power movement implode. Cole is dark-skinned and nappy-haired (the only family member able to pick out a decent afro) and Birdie is light-skinned and straight-haired, with people assuming she is Sicilian, Puerto Rican, and Jewish in different parts of the story. Their lives after the implosion (and to a lesser extent even before the implosion) are defined in many ways by the way people perceive their race. It was interesting how Senna ground the "race is a construct" discussion under her heel because for these purposes, for these little girls, it just does not matter if it is a construct, it is their reality and the world makes them choose up sides, or more accurately the world chooses for them. They create an alternate world and language, Elemeno, where there is no such thing as race, and where everyone can transform at will, but sadly they are the only two who live there.
This is where I am going to stop talking about what happens in the story, though for those interested I am sure other reviews cover it. I have not read other reviews, and I enjoyed being surprised by the way the story rolled out. I will say that the story places Birdie in different environments, and those changes impact everything about her life. I liked seeing how race was a sort of aggravating factor in other experiences and facts such as physically maturing, being the new kid in school, connecting to romantic partners, and pursuing academic success.
Ultimately I found this story challenging and moving and also really engrossing. Birdie is a great companion to travel with. She is wise and a bit world-weary but she is also a child and Senna never loses sight of that.… (altro)