Mary Helen Washington

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Midnight Birds : stories by contemporary Black women writers. Garden City, N.Y: Anchor Books. 1980. ISBN   978-0-385-14878-8. OCLC   5726621.
  • Black-eyed Susans/Midnight Birds : stories by and about Black women . New York: Anchor Books. 1990. ISBN   978-0-385-26015-2. OCLC   19975571.
  • The other blacklist : the African American literary and cultural left of the 1950s . New York New York: Columbia University Press. 2014. ISBN   978-0-231-15270-9. OCLC   875819059.
  • Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860-1960. Anchor; Reissue edition (September 1, 1988). 1988. ISBN   978-0385248426.
  • Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers. Anchor; 1st edition (December 1, 1990). 1990. ISBN   978-0385247832.
  • Foreword to Hurston, Zora Neale (2006). Their Eyes Were Watching God . Amistad; 75th Anniversary edition (May 30, 2006). ISBN   9780061120060.
  • Notable works

    Black-Eyed Susans (1975) and Midnight Birds (1980)

    Black-Eyed Susans is a collection of ten stories meant to challenge the stereotypes of servant, wife and mother associated with Black women. [10] Its collection of characters conveys an image of Black women that stresses their complexity and depth. [10]

    Five years later, Washington published Midnight Birds as a revision of Black-Eyed Susans that focuses on various aspects of contemporary Black women writers’ experience, exploring issues of poverty, abuse, mental illness and sexuality. [11]

    Memories of Kin (1991)

    Memories of Kin is a collection of family-centered stories and poems. Depicting Black families' struggle to uphold traditions from a primarily female viewpoint, the collection explores the way different generations interact within families, especially mother-daughter relations. [12]

    The Other Blacklist (2014)

    The Other Blacklist critiques the lack of influential Black literary figures accepted as literary canon. Washington focuses on the lived experiences of influential Left Black literary figures such as Lloyd Brown and Gwendolyn Brooks. Her analysis focuses on archives materials, including interviews and FBI files, to push the literary canon to better represent the role of Black authors in shaping American culture. [11]

    Awards

    Washington was the 1988 recipient of the Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women and has received honorary Doctorate degrees from Bridgewater State College, Emmanuel College, Notre Dame College, Regis College, and Marygrove College. [13] In 2014, she received an honorable mention for the Modern Language Association's William Sanders Scarborough Prize. In 2015, Washington received the American Studies Association's Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement. [14]

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    References

    1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Teamorsays, Ricardo. "Black Women's Writing Recovered". Against the Current. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
    2. "EDITORS' CHOICES: THE BEST BOOKS OF 1987 (Published 1987)". The New York Times. December 6, 1987. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved March 8, 2021.
    3. 1 2 "Mary Helen Washington". University of Maryland. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
    4. "Mary Helen Washington". IMDb. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
    5. Dolinar, Brian (April 2, 2016). "The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s, by Mary Helen Washington". The Black Scholar. 46 (2): 61–64. doi:10.1080/00064246.2016.1147996. ISSN   0006-4246.
    6. Between the Lines: Mary Helen Washington and Farah Jasmine Griffin , retrieved March 8, 2021
    7. 1 2 "Issues | International Socialist Review". isreview.org. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
    8. "Black Lives". Yale University Press . Yale University . Retrieved March 18, 2022.
    9. Smith, Harrison (August 16, 2019). "Paule Marshall, literary chronicler of the African diaspora, dies at 90". The Washington Post.
    10. 1 2 Washington, Mary Helen (January 1981). "New Lives and New Letters: Black Women Writers at the End of the Seventies". College English. 43 (1). National Council of Teachers of English: 1–11. doi:10.2307/377306. JSTOR   377306.
    11. 1 2 "Black Women's Writing Recovered: an interview with Mary Helen Washington". Against the Current. 160. January 2016.
    12. Fisher Peters, Pearlie (Fall 1990). "Review of 'Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers'". Sage. 7 (2).
    13. "Mary Helen Washington". University of Maryland. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
    14. "American Studies Association 2015 Awards Ceremony" (Press release). The American Studies Association. October 2015.
    Mary Helen Washington
    Born (1941-01-21) January 21, 1941 (age 83)
    AwardsCandace Award
    Academic background
    Education Notre Dame College
    Alma mater University of Detroit