Search Results: Authors starting with C from Oasis in the Diaspora

Random House, 1977. 1. Good. Ten stories of Black life written with Ms. Bambara's characteristic vigor, sensibility and winning irony. The stories range from the timid and bumbling confusion of a novice community worker in "The Apprentice" to the love-versus-politics crisis of an organizers wife, to the dark and bright notes of the title story about the passengers on a refugee ship from a war-torn Asian nation. Young girls, weary men, lovers, frauds and revolutionaries -- Toni Cade Bambara handles them all the expertise, passion and huge talent. As the Chicago Daily News said, "Ms. Bambara grabs you by the throat...she dazzles, she charms." Hardcover
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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1991. 1st. Fair. In this wise, beguiling, and beautiful novel set in the era of the Civil War, award-winning playwright and author J. California Cooper paints a haunting portrait of a woman named Always and four generations of her African-American family. Softcover

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St. Martin's Press, 1987. J. California Cooper writes with a transparent clarity and such exuberant energy that her characters leap off the page, bursting with stories they've got to tell--stories of simple people, stories of families and fate, of love and marriage, of death and the triumph of the human spirit. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved. Signed & and inscribed
First edition, ninth printing
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Wild Trees Press, 1984. Fine. This is the first collection of short stories to be published by dramatist Cooper, who was named Black Playwright of the Year in 1978, and the first book to be published by a small press founded by Alice Walker and Robert Allen. These 12 well-crafted and unusual stories are multilayered in their meaning and have characters who transcend social, racial, and cultural classifications. The stories are mostly told in a conversational manner by a trusted female friend of the woman in the story or occasionally by a sister, while the main character remains silent. Cooper creates vividly the voice of the sister-witness, who has a natural affinity for the protagonist and a sense of the oppressed role of women in society. The stories include: "A Jewel for a Friend," "Color Me Real," "The Free and the Caged," "Liberated," and "Funeral Plans." ISBN 0-931125-00-6 (pbk.) : $7.95. Signed, Inscribed
Softcover

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Kensington, 1999. 1st. Pristine. Set in the northern foothills of Trinidad during a dry season more intense than any in memory, A Thirst for Rain captures the island that isn't seen by tourists - one where men and women struggle side by side in the cramped, dusty communal yard of a small hillside neighborhood ... and where lives inevitably become entangled.There is Myra, a proud, sensuous, hardworking woman who finds blessed release in her own restless desires; Odile, Myra's defiant teenage daughter who risks her one chance to escape the family's poverty; Sebastian, Myra's senile father who has begun to follow his fantasies into a world of trouble; Slim, Myra's worthless street vendor boyfriend who spends as much time seducing young women as he does selling cheap trinkets; Jacob, the once-famous West Indian stickfighter who thought the hero in him was long dead, until he meets Myra. And Rory, the boy next door whose desperate need for Odile's love may destroy everything before the rains come.… Read More

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1996. 1st. Fine. An intimate, gripping novel of the antebellum Underground Railroad, based on the true story of a valiant Philadelphia freedwoman—a debut novel from the author of the “stunning memoir” Black Ice (New York Times)."A stunning achievement ... a deeply engrossing story." —The Philadelphia InquirerWith Price of a Child—the story of Ginnie Pryor (cook, mistress and servant to a Virginia planter) and her struggle with slavery in 1855—Lorene Cary continues has created a work that elevates the reputation she created with Black Ice, her memoir which won her comparisons to Maya Angelou and Richard Wright. In a novel that examines the price of freedom and the value of a child's life, Cary has created an authentic American heroine—a woman who finds voice for the appalling loss and bitterness of her past, and who creates within herself a new humanity. Hardcover
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Doubleday, 2004. 1. Fine. Adoring her talented magician father and heritage-proud mother, Angela finds her life altered when her mother leaves the family to join the causeof Black Liberation leader Assata Shakur, who has recently escaped from prison. Hardcover
publisher ephemera
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Zoland Books, 1999. Fine. First English edition
Hardcover

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Knopf, 1977. 1. Very Good. Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, a novel of large beauty and power, creates a magical world out of four generations of black life in America, a world we enter on the day of the birth of Macon Dead, Jr. (known as Milkman), son of the richest black family in a mid-western town; the day on which the lonely insurance man, Robert Smith, poised in blue silk wings, attempts to fly from a steeple of the hospital, a black Icarus looking homeward... We see Milkman growing up in his father's money-haunted, death-haunted house with his silent sisters and strangely passive mother, beginning to move outward--through his profound love and combat with his friend Guitar...through Guitar's mad and loving commitment to the secret avengers called the Seven Days...through Milkman's exotic, imprisoning affair with his love-blind cousin, Hagar...and through his unconscious apprenticeship to his mystical Aunt Pilate, who saved his life before he was born. And we follow him as he strikes out… Read More

Random House Publishing Group, 2009. 1st. Pristine. For Josephine Evans, home was on the stages of the world where she spent thirty years establishing herself as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Josephine was the toast of Europe, and her fabulous apartment in Amsterdam’s theater district was a popular gathering place for an international community of artists, actors, and expatriates who considered themselves true citizens of the world. Josephine lived above and beyond the reach of conventional definitions of who and what an African American diva could be, and her legions of loyal fans loved her for it. She had a perfect life and enough sense to live it to the hilt, but then a war she didn’t fully understand turned everything upside down, thrusting her into a role she never wanted and was not prepared to play. Suddenly the target of angry protests aimed at the country she had never really felt was her own, Josephine is forced to return to America to see if she can create a new… Read More

HarperCollins, 2001. 1st. Fine. Joyce Mitchell was widowed far too young when her beloved husband, Mitch, died in a tragic accident five years ago. Since then she's kept her hands full and her mind and heart occupied by running The Sewing Circus, an all-girl group she founded to provide badly needed services like day care and job counseling to young women, many of whom are single mothers. More important, The Circus is a place for lively, wide-ranging, heart-to-heart discussions that will help members grow into what Joyce likes to call "twenty-first-century free women."All in all, Joyce has a full and rich life. She has her work, her family, her friends, and her town. But there are some nights when she crawls into bed alone and has to admit that something is missing. What she doesn't have is that red dress she keeps dreaming about or a social life that would accommodate it even if she braved the mail and bought one. To further complicate matters, she may not have The Sewing Circus much longer, as… Read More

Random House Publishing Group, 2019. 1. Good. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.“This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco ChronicleIN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo FilmsNOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his… Read More