Description

One of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive

A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem, weak and half-blind. On she stumbles – through teenage pain and loneliness, but then to happiness in friendship, work and sex, from Washington Heights to Mexico, always changing, always strong. This is Audre Lorde’s story. A rapturous, life-affirming autobiographical novel by the ‘Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet’, it changed the literary landscape.

‘Her work shows us new ways to imagine the world … so many themes of Audre’s work have endured’ Renni Eddo Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

‘I came across Audre Lorde’s Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration’ Jackie Kay

Publisher Review

The truth of her writing is as necessary today as it's ever been * Guardian * Zami feels larger than life - almost legendary - while remaining grounded, intimate and moving * Cosmopolitan * Zami made me realise that I was not alone ... that I, too, could be as courageous and as loud with my truths * Elle Magazine * Zami is just the best * Vice * Lorde's examination of her multiple outsiderness pried my sheltered mind wide open -- Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home (in 'My Ten Favorite Books,' New York Times Magazine) Audre Lorde says it best * Refinery29 * I have an Audre Lorde google alert on my phone. It helps confirm how relevant my favorite black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet remains today * Huffington Post * Her work is so quotable. It has the zeitgeist factor. Now, just as much as ever, we need the voice of Audre Lorde * New Statesman * Zami is important because of its descriptions of growing up a black lesbian feminist in the 1950s, with open, unapologetic, vivid descriptions of women's relationships * Guardian * Excellent and evocative... personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness shine through the writing. Her experiences are painted with exquisite imagery * The New York Times * I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration. At last I felt I fitted in. -- Jackie Kay