Close Kin & Distant Relatives:

The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature

Susana Morris identifies a tradition among contemporary African American and Black Caribbean women writers who challenge respectability politics. In examining the work of Paule Marshall, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, and Sapphire, Morris argues these writers advocate instead for a transgressive understanding of affinity and propose an ethic of community support and accountability that calls for mutual affection, affirmation, loyalty, and respect. At the core of these transgressive family systems, Morris reveals, is a connection to African diasporic cultural rites such as dance, storytelling, and music that help the fictional characters to establish familial connections.

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  • “Timely and useful, this book amplifies the voices of black women novelists who have taken bold and counterhegemonic positions on the ‘plight’ of the contemporary black family. It takes up important issues in black women’s literature of the late twentieth century and puts these issues together in a fresh and productive way.”

    —E. Frances White, author of Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability

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