by Imani Perry
First published 2018
Imani Perry reconstructs the complete life of Lorraine Hansberry, the brilliant playwright who died at thirty-four. Perry moves beyond the single work that made Hansberry famous, A Raisin in the Sun, to reveal a woman of extraordinary complexity and courage. Hansberry challenged presidents on civil rights, supported African independence movements, and confronted the casual racism of Beat generation writers. She married a man while identifying as lesbian and joined one of America's early lesbian organizations. The FBI placed her under surveillance when she was barely twenty. Perry traces Hansberry's connections to James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The book restores Hansberry to her rightful place among the most important Black intellectuals and artists of the twentieth century. Perry shows readers a life of remarkable achievement compressed into too few years.
Genres: biography, literary-fiction, 20th-century, african-american, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, intimate
Setting: America
Period: 20th Century
256 pages · Hardcover · Beacon Press