These Hands I Know: African-American Writers on Family [Paperback]

Afaa Michael Weaver (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2002

These Hands I Know offers readers the first-ever intimate view of the inner workings of black family life from the point of view of prose and poetry writers. This collection of seventeen essays includes portraits of fathers, mothers, nieces, brothers, grandparents, husbands, wives, and daughters—in short the full spectrum of absolute humanity in contemporary black families. Here, in letter form, a man speaks to his aunt, the family matriarch. A daughter rejects her father’s ideas of African-American identity. A young woman holds her niece in her hands for the very first time. And a son faces his father as an old man and finally comes to terms with his failings. These Hands I Know seeks to gather a resolutely honest picture of family life, however painful or joyous that truth may be.

"Family life is an insistent vessel traveling the space of our struggles to love and to be loved. . . . Africans and their descendants in America have always been nothing more and nothing less than human. If anything is constant and universal, it is suffering—personal, social, and political. If these essays offer anything, it is the affirmation of humanity."—From the Introduction by Afaa Michael Weaver

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Contributors include:
Fred D'Aguiar
Tara Betts
Gwendolyn Brooks
Karen Chandler
Edwidge Danticat
Jarvis Q. DeBerry
Gerald Early
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Lise Funderburg
Walter Warren Harper
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Trent Masiki
E. Ethelbert Miller
Marilyn Nelson
Kalamu ya Salaam
Della Scott
Alice Walker

Also available by Afaa Michael Weaver
Multitudes: Poems Selected and New
TC $24.00, 1-889330-40-X • CUSA
TP $14.95, 1-889330-41-8 • CUSA

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In his introduction, Weaver (English, Simmons Coll.) states accurately that this collection reveals "the inner workings of African-American families." Included in this remarkable compilation are 17 pieces, ranging from first-person narratives to poetry and even epistles, that honor mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and other family members in honest and sometimes painful ways. The contributors include well-known authors like Gwendolyn Brooks, Karen Chandler, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Trent Masiki, and Alice Walker; newer writers Jarvis Q. DeBerry and Della Scott also offer testimonies. Throughout, the themes explored include death, abandonment, abuse, parenthood, segregation, racism, and sexism. What results is a series of intimate portraits that reveal family life as "an insistent vessel traveling the space of our struggles to love and be loved." Such struggle is inevitable, for as we see, not only must African American families address typical family problems but these problems are complicated by racism, economic struggle, and urban conflicts. Riveting and often emotionally charged, this work is highly recommended for all academic and large public libraries. Erica Swenson Danowitz, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A broad range of black family life is offered in this collection of essays, some reprinted and others original, from a variety of writers and poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Walker, Edwige Danticat, and Marilyn Nelson. Henry Louis Gates writes about the secret eccentricities of his mother's family; Trent Masiki laments his Ugandan father's alienation from the family, which resulted in cutting off access to intimate knowledge of African culture; Tara Betts recalls her eventual reconciliation with an emotionally distant father, which eases a lifelong cynicism about men. The 17 essays provide a broad cultural span of the African diaspora, from Africa to the Caribbean to the U.S., and are as evocative of geographic place as they are of one's place in the family as child, parent, or sibling. Remembrances range from the struggle to form and maintain families in the face of oppression and forced separation to recollections about swapping lies and telling painful truths. A joyous celebration of the variety and enduring humanity of black family life. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Sarabande Books; 1 edition (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889330728
• ISBN-13: 978-1889330723
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,169,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)