Zami: A New Spelling of my Name (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Gennie, a.k.a. Genevieve, Audre's closest friend in high school who takes dance classes and commits suicide. The first person she consciously, truly loves. Lesbianism – The book describes the way lesbians lived in New York City, Connecticut and Mexico during the 1950s through 1970s. Lorde's real goal in this book however, is less to explicate the socio-political turmoil of her youth, and rather to examine the various emotional bonds she forms with other women, lesbian or otherwise, around her. Zami is a pensive story of how a marginalized woman learns to thrive and build community. The sheer inwardness of Lorde's focus makes it a work of intensely personal emotional reflection, more than a conventional memoir per se (hence her decision to call this a 'mythobiography'). The real audience for Zami, I suspect, is Lorde herself. Which is completely fair. The dominant impression I get from this is similar to what I've gotten from Susan Sontag's memoirs: that this is a person whose sheer emotional maturity and awareness would make many people 3-4 times her age feel juvenile. Traveling alone to Mexico when you're barely 20 and ending up in an affair with an expat journalist whose pushing 50? Like...Jesus...

Each one of us had been starved for love for so long that we wanted to believe that love, once found, was all-powerful. We wanted to believe that it could give word to my inchoate pain and rages; that it could enable them to face the world and get a job; that it could free our writings, cure racism, end homophobia and adolescent acne.” There was an echo for me of bell hooks' essay 'Blood Works' in Art on My Mind: Visual Politics when Audre recalls stains on her pillow from nose bleeds being 'at least a sign of something living'. This appreciation belongs to an awareness of life's precariousness and preciousness inculcated by tragedy, and the will to live beyond survival. The Rosenbergs had been executed, the transistor radio had been invented, and frontal lobotomy was the standard solution for persistent deviation." Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a 1982 biomythography by American poet Audre Lorde. It started a new genre that the author calls biomythography, which combines history, biography, and myth. [1] In the text, Lorde writes that "Zami" is "a Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers", noting that Carriacou is the Caribbean island from which her mother immigrated. [2] The name proves fitting: Lorde begins Zami writing that she owes her power and strength to the women in her life, and much of the book is devoted to detailed portraits of other women. [2] Plot summary [ edit ]The nacreous lustre of New York blazes forth from the imagination of Lorde; a kaleidoscope of colours and cultures, from 1930's Harlem and the feeling or repression, desperation and poverty mixed with hope for a new future, to the bohemian 1950's Village; Once home was a long way off, a place I had never been to but knew out of my mother’s mouth. I only discovered its latitudes when Carriacou was no longer my home. Although a linear account of her life in the traditional autobiography sense, it’s also very much about the women who made Audre Lorde what she was, from the start: her mother and her forebears, her sisters, high school friends, and lovers - a web of women’s lives with Audre at the centre. That sounds much more nurturing than it actually was; most of these relationships were fraught, with her mother especially, and the narrative is shot through with pain and loss. I think it would not be hyperbolic to say that reading this linked piece by her at the age of about 19 completely changed me and my view of the world:

Sadly I didn't love this as much as I thought I would, although parts of it I did love and there is some stunningly beautiful writing. Especially in the first half I had trouble emotionally connecting with the character Audre--I'm not sure if that was my state of mind or the writing style. I also wanted to know more about certain parts of Lorde's life (poetry, libraries) and less about her sex life (haha no judgment if your preferences are the other way around). When Lorde returned to New York she roomed with a white progressive woman named Rhea. She took on a variety of jobs, but her race made it difficult to find something that inspired her or paid her fairly. She made friends and was part of the Greenwich Village lesbian scene, though she still felt like an outsider of sorts. She was in college throughout these years, knowing she had to get a degree or she would not have much of a future.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 where we are standing."