Join us at Gabes Bar & Kitchen, 991 Lexington Pkwy, St Paul (Neighborhood Bar | Gabe's By The Park | Saint Paul, MN). All are welcome to our discussion on Zami, A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde.
This book 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. 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. 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.
Audre Lorde grows up in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s, a child of Black West Indian parents. Lorde is legally blind from a very young age, isolating her even further from her surroundings and a family from which she does not receive much warmth or affection.
Lorde does not speak until age four, when she declares that she wants to read, and promptly follows through on this desire. She witnesses racism from a young age. The family's landlord hangs himself for having to rent his flat to Black people. When the family takes a trip to Washington, D.C., they are not allowed to eat ice cream at a lunch counter because of Jim Crow laws. Despite the rampant racism of this era that Lorde encountered in her daily life, her mother attempted to shield her from it. When white people spit at them during Lorde's childhood, her mother would disparage those low-class people for spitting into the wind.
(Wikimedia)
I hope that you can join us. All are welcome. We normally have 10-12 regular attendees. If you are new to our book club or haven't been with us for a while, please
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