New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers

LaToya Jefferson-James is assistant professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University.

New Criticism and Pedagogical Directions for Contemporary Black Women Writers is an excellent collection of essays that aims at increasing awareness of Black womanhood through scholarly analyses and pedagogical practices. It discusses the issues of Black feminism in contemporary societies, including Black women's voices, status, rights, experience, exploitation, and struggle demonstrated in literary works by such noted writers as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It is also a mindful echo of Blackness emphasized in the Black Arts Movement. This book explores the strategies of teaching Black women writers by understanding their literary expressions and their ways of thinking throbbing with the trials and tribulations of their fight for freedom, dream, and human rights. --John Zheng, editor of Sonia Sanchez's "Poetic Spirit through Haiku and The Other World of Richard Wright"