In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

by Alice Walker, Lynnette R. Freeman (Read by)

Overview

In this groundbreaking classic essay collection, Alice Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist on topics ranging from the personal to the political.

Originally published forty years ago, Alice Walker’s first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that remains both timely and relevant. In these thirty-six essays, Walker contemplates her own work and that of other writers, considers the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, and writes vividly and courageously about a scarring childhood injury. Throughout, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the “womanist” tradition of black women—insights that are vital to understanding our lives and society today.

“When I graduated from college, my father gave me Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. It was a beaten-up paperback in 1999, and it’s even more battered now.” —Jesmyn Ward

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212700795
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/28/2023
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet, and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, five children's books, and several volumes of essays and poetry. She has received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the National Book Award, and has been honored with the O. Henry Award, the Lillian Smith Award, and the Mahmoud Darwish Literary Prize for Fiction. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and received the Lennon Ono Peace Award. Her work has been published in forty languages worldwide.

Lynnette R. Freeman is a voice and stage actress from East Cleveland. She is a graduate of Brown University and earned her MFA in acting from the Brown/Trinity Rep Conservatory. She is the narrator of several audiobooks, including The Family Business 3 by Carl Weber and Treasure Hernandez, I'm Doin' Me by Anna Black, Becoming Mrs. Right by Sherri L. Lewis, and Wife Extraordinaire by Kiki Swinson.

Hometown:

Mendocino, California

Date of Birth:

February 9, 1944

Place of Birth:

Eatonton, Georgia

Education:

B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, 1965; attended Spelman College, 1961-63

Editorial Reviews

This first collection of nonfiction from the author of The Color Purple includes a vivid and courageous memoir of a scarring childhood injury and her daughter's healing words.

bn.com

This... collection of Alice Walker's best essays... reflects not only the ideas but a life that has for fifteen years breathed color, sound... in fiction and poetry - and into our lives as well.
— San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Gabrielle Daniels

This is one of the healthiest collection of essays I have come across in a long time. We seldom get writers writing so personally, so appealingly about the need to be saved, about the way in which that personal salvation can be achieved. What she says about the black woman she says from the depth of oppression. What is said from the depth of oppression illuminates all the other opressions.
— The New Statesman

Ben Okri

One of the healthiest collections of essays I have come across in a long time . . . What [Walker] says about the black woman she says from the depths of oppression. What is said from the depths of oppression illuminates all other oppressions.” — New Statesman

“Reflects not only the ideas but a life that has . . . breathed color, sound, and soul into fiction and poetry—and into our lives as well.” — San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher