Looking for Lorraine [eBook - NC Digital Library] : The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry

Winner of the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction Winner of the Shilts-Grahn Triangle Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Winner of the 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 A revealing portrait of one of the most gifted and charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century. Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun , her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work#8212;until now. In 2018, Hansberry will get the recognition she deserves with the PBS American Masters documentary "Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart" and Imani Perry's multi-dimensional, illuminating biography, Looking for Lorraine . After the success of A Raisin in the Sun , Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters. Though she married a man, she identified as lesbian and, risking censure and the prospect of being outed, joined one of the nation's first lesbian organizations. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians, including Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, among others. Looking for Lorraine is a powerful insight into Hansberry's extraordinary life#8212;a life that was tragically cut far too short. A Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Book for Nonfiction A 2019 Pauli Murray Book Prize Finalist "Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965 at age thirty-four, was, by all accounts, a force of nature. She was also one of the most radical, courageous, and prescient artist-intellectuals of the twentieth century--and one of the least understood. Defined largely by her groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry has been hidden in plain sight for decades. Little of her manifold contributions, her associations, her other writing, or her transgressive nature is known. A prolific and probing artist, she also committed herself passionately to political activism. Hansberry's unflinching dedication to social justice brought her under FBI surveillance in the midst of McCarthyism, when she was barely in her twenties. Looking for Lorraine is the first biography of Hansberry in decades, and it shows her multi-dimensional and miraculous complexity. Hansberry was a child of Chicago's striving Black middle class but cast her lot with the working classes; she married a man--Jewish communist songwriter Robert Nemiroff--but described herself as a lesbian. Risking public censure and the prospect of being outed, she joined one of the nation's First lesbian organizations. Hansberry was a Black nationalist and an internationalist. She was befriended and beloved by many of the most important Black figures of her era, including James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Paul Robeson. After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her stature in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy to take bolder stances on civil rights, supporting African anticolonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Greenwich Village hipsters. In this watershed biography, Imani Perry takes us deep into Hansberry's relationships, explores her rich interior life and her influences, and, as Hansberry's papers were finally made available in 2010, unearths revealing themes from her unpublished writing. Looking for Lorraine gives us the ultimate gift of imagining Hansberry as a complete person--and of seeing her prodigious intellect, emotions, activism, and varied relationships at work together in her short but extraordinarily luminous life."--Jacket Portrait of American black artist, writer and nationalist Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). Though she married a man, she identified herself as lesbian. Risking public censure and the prospect of being outed, she joined one of American's first lesbian organizations. She was befriended and admired by well-known figures such as James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. After the success of her play 'A Raisin in the Sun', Hansberry used her prominence in different ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders and confronting the racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters A Revealing Portrait Of One Of The Most Gifted And Charismatic, Yet Least Understood, Black Artists And Intellectuals Of The Twentieth Century - Introduction -- Migration Song -- From Heartland To The Water's Edge -- The Girl Who Can Do Everything -- Bobby -- Sappho's Poetry -- Raisin -- The Trinity -- Of The Faith Of Our Fathers -- American Radical -- The View From Chitterling Heights -- Homegoing -- Conclusion: Retracing, May 2017. Imani Perry. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry had an unflinching commitment to social justice which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians; though she married a man, she identified as a lesbian. Perry provides insights into Hansberry's life and writings, and shows how her political activism is reflected in her works. -- adapted from jacket