Customer Reviews

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series)

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No poems this time around, folks: prose that gets under your skin and into your head. The late, great Audre Lorde, known primarily for her poetry over the years, wrote what is one of the most compelling books on sociology, sexuality, racism and the nature of human character and existence in the last 20 years. Her charges are damning, but dashed with more than a spoonful of hope when appropriate, and it is impossible to walk away from this book unchanged.

No New Age-isms, no agendas...just common-sense reactions to everyday experiences told in a way that not only everyone can understand, but in a way everyone SHOULD understand.

Although Audre Lorde distinguished herself as a poet, her prose writings are an indispensable part of her overall literary achievement. "Sister Outsider" is an excellent collection of her prose from the late 1970s and early 1980s. This book brings together essays, speeches, journal entries, and an illuminating dialogue between Lorde and sister poet Adrienne Rich. While each piece stands alone as a complete and thought-provoking gem, the book as a whole constitutes one of the most extraordinary intellectual testaments of the 20th century.

Lorde writes from her perspective as a Black woman, a lesbian, a feminist, a poet, a mother, a teacher, and a cultural activist. Her voice is forthright and unsparing in moral outrage, yet filled with hope and poetic beauty. One of the core themes unifying this collection is her incisive analysis of the interlocking, overlapping axes of difference, privilege, abuse, and resistance. As she deconstructs such phenomena as homophobia, racism, and sexism, Lorde is both intellectually ambitious and down-to-earth; in her arguments with academic figures, she never forgets the real impact of discrimination and violence upon those who live outside the relatively privileged worlds of academia.

Each piece in "Sister Outsider" makes a unique contribution to the overall impact of the book. "Notes from a Trip to Russia" is a fascinating historical document from the Cold War era. "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" serves as an important part of Lorde's artistic manifesto. "An Open Letter to Mary Daly" offers an illuminating glimpse into some of the tensions within the feminist movement of the 1970s. And "Grenada Revisited" is a powerful counterpoint to the Reaganite view of a military action in the Caribbean. The other eleven pieces are equally thought-provoking.

In the essay "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," Lorde expands upon the title statement by adding, "They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change." Lorde's powerful writings may just give us readers some real tools that we can use to bring about "real change"--both within ourselves and in our society.

Audre Lorde was one of the most amazing, beautiful women of this century. She is truly inspirational and mind-blowing. Sister Outsider is a book of essays, all of them really well-written, insightfull, and thought provoking. The essay that the "Your silence will not protect you" quote is from is in this book and it is beautiful. Please get this book, read it and tell others about it. "When I dare to be powerful and to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether or not I am afraid" -Audre Lorde

This book is a compilation of material Lorde wrote in the 70s 80s. Lorde is one of the foremost writers on the subjects of patriarchy, sexism, homphobia and race relations that the West has ever seen. She talks about how to make change and helps the reader truly understand the situation of people who are underprivileged and discriminated against in our society. Of all the books I read in my Women's Studies classes, this is the one that stayed with me. It is at once intellectually challenging and accessible. I particularly enjoyed her "Notes from a Trip to Russia" and "An Open Letter to Mary Daly." The piece that has had the most impact on my life, however, is "The Masters Tools," which is a blueprint for change. She is giving us the keys we need to not only improve our own lives, but the world as a whole. Lorde's words ring as true today as they did when the book was first published. A must read!!!

"I have come to work on you like a drug or a chisel" wrote the late Audre Lorde. Her passing created a hollow space in my soul that is now full again, thanks to Audre Lorde. Despite the fact that 'Sister Outsider' is assigned in virtually every women's studies and gender studies 101, do not think it is dry, ultimately a mere 'academic' book. Audre Lorde lived in and for a radical poetics and a radical pedagogy. If you have not discovered her work yet, please get a hold of a copy. It might save your life the way it saved mine, and I am white, male and straight, with a fierce hatred of white supremacy, patriarchy, and homophobia. But never mind my repeating a mantra you have heard, simply read this book as soon as possible.

I wish I'd read this book 30 years ago when it came out. It's still as relevant today as it was then--and in many ways just as revolutionary. I'm not black, but it applies to anyone who does not run with the crowd and has a strong desire to look at things honestly in spite of the personal discomfort involved. Things need to change in the US--we need to see ourselves as in this thing together(life, the "American experiment"),and this book drives that home.

This is much more than a book, a collection of writings. It's an experience more like surviving a traumatic event, seeing a deep and distressing movie or having a long and difficult talk with someone who has been oppressed from all sides. It accomplishes that which no other book I have ever read has done. Aside from the profound personal impact it has had on me, it details a horror story of a life lived with incomparable insight into humanity as well as with courage which faces that horror every day. I bought and read the book based on the other reviews above. They are all correct, but the praise this book deserves is understated. It may well be the greatest book of psychological insight and advice ever written. Only Dostoevsky's works compare. Lorde defies all the labels she and others use to describe her. This is the most human of all books because it stares the weaknesses we all share right in the face and finds ways to fight if not conquer them as well as pointing out strategies that are counterproductive. Lorde allows the reader to get inside her skin like no other writer, and for the first time ever, made me feel the anger, terror, fear, helplessness I have sensed in many if not all black people. And yet her greatest criticisms are not of whites, but especially of her black sisters and then her brothers. She clearly does not set herself apart because she knows she has had "my boot on a sister's face". Richard Adams wrote a story called "The Hole in the Sky". Most people never see it, but this book describes best of all what makes up that hole and what it feels like to see it.

At the November 2008 meeting of the NYC LGBT Center book discussion group, we had small group discuss "Sister Outsider," essays by Audre Lorde.

What a great night (Obama's election!) to read this book and talk about how things have changed. The topics in "Sister Outsider" raised many memories and much discussion of past injustices, and how Lorde worked personally and publicly to create some of the world we see today. We talked about the role of mixed race couples (both straight and lesbian), the importance of speaking out, and what a powerful presenter Lorde must have been. However, despite the authority and wealth of ideas, we thought that this book of speeches and essays insufficiently told the story of Lorde's life and struggles, and that we probably would have been better served by reading her biomythography (that's her term) "Zami: A New Spelling of her Name."

Having some factual information (found in her biography "Warrior Poet" by Alexis De Veaux) made her challenges and story much more understandable. For example, she was raised in an impoverished home by emigrants from Granada, she was a communist, was married to a white gay man with whom she had two children, had many open affairs even after she was in a long-term relationship with a white lesbian, was legally blind, and died of cancer after a long fight. More than an essayist, Lorde considered her self a poet, and we finished the night by reading some of her poetry out loud.

What a great night to read "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house!"

_Sister Outsider_ is a masterpiece. It contains some of the most insightful and thought provoking femist essays of our time. Lorde addresses a plethora of issues that face her as a woman, a lesbian, an African American, and a lesbian. This text is invaluable not only to people who fall within these categories but to anyone who operates on any level within a diverse society.

delicious prose. rich words. a lot of anger and pain evident in her writings, but for valid reasons. my copy has a lot of penciled-in hearts and underlines...

"and it is never without fear--of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgement, of pain, of death. but we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. and i remind myself all the time now that if i were to have been born mute, or had maintained an oath of silence my whole life long for safety, i would still have suffered, and i would still die. it is very good for establishing perspective." (transformation of silence).

not a book you can quickly skim through cover to cover. i took each chapter in slowly, sometimes re-read it, and put the book down for a while.