Other Voices:

---

 

Another partial, and woefully inadequate list - of women's voices emerging in the late 20th century.

Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)

Marimma Ba (So Long a Letter)

Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street)

Buchi Emecheta (The Joys of Motherhood)

Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine)

Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Wathching God)

Cynthia Kadohata (The Heart of the Country of Love)

Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior)

Baharate Mukerjee (Jasmine)

Gloria Naylor (Bailey's Cafe)

Faye Ng (Bone)

Alicia Rifaat (View of a Distant Minaret)

Arundahti Roy (The God of Small Things)

Leslie Marmon Silko (House of Dawn)

Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

Ntozake Shange

Web Resource:  Voices from the Gap - women writers of color -

From the Alpha Blondy Gallery - by Edna Petty (contemporary) [all attempts to e-mail the artists and the gallery have heretofore failed.  Please e-mail me if you have copyright information M.Luesebrink]

Although we will not have time to cover even a fraction of the writers I have listed, I would like to alert you to two favorites that you will surely want to explore asap.

Louise Erdrich

The earth was full of life and there were dandelions growing out the window, thick as thieves,
already seeded, fat as big yellow plungers. She let my hand go. I got up. "I'll go out and dig a few
dandelions," I told her. Outside, the sun was hot and heavy as a hand on my back. I felt it flow down
my arms, out my fingers, arrowing through the ends of the fork into the earth. With every root I
prized up there was a return, as if I was kin to its secret lesson. The touch got stronger as I worked
through the grassy afternoon. Uncurling from me like a seed out of the blackness where I was lost,
the touch spread. The spiked leaves full of bitter mother's milk. A buried root. A nuisance people dig
up and throw in the sun to wither. A globe of frail seeds that's indestructible. 
--Love Medicine

From Toni Nelson's Louise Erdrich Page:

Karen Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota on June 7, 1954. Her mother is French Ojibwa and her father is German American. As Erdrich was growing up, her parents worked in Wahpeton, North Dakota at the Bureau of Indian Affairs School. Her grandfather was the Tribal Chairman of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Erdrich herself is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. She attended college at Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins before marrying author and anthropologist Michael Dorris. Erdrich and Dorris became well known for their literature, sometimes being called the "poster couple of multicultural literature". When Erdrich married Dorris, he had three adopted children and later the couple had three more children of their own. When Dorris and Erdrich separated in 1995, Erdrich moved six blocks down the street in order to share custody of their children. On March 29, 1997 Dorris committed suicide.  Erdrich now lives in Minneapolis, MN with her three youngest children. 

Erdrich's novels Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, and Tales of Burning Love encompass the stories of three interrelated families living in and around a reservation in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota, from 1912 through the 1980s. The novels have been compared to those of William Faulkner, mainly due to the multi-voice narration and nonchronological storytelling which he employed in works such as As I Lay Dying. Erdrich's works, linked by recurring characters who are victims of fate and the patterns set by their elders, are structured like intricate puzzles in which bits of information about individuals and their relations to one another are slowly released in a seemingly random order, until three-dimensional characters — with a future and a past — are revealed.  Through her characters' antics, Erdrich explores universal family life cycles while also communicating a sense of the changes and loss involved in the
twentieth-century Native American experience. 

WRITINGS

Novels 

Love Medicine, Holt, 1984, expanded edition, 1993. 
The Beet Queen, Holt, 1986. 
Tracks, Harper, 1988. 
(With husband, Michael Dorris) The Crown of Columbus, HarperCollins, 1991. 
The Bingo Palace, HarperCollins, 1994. 
Tales of Burning Love, HarperCollins, 1996. 

Poetry 

Jacklight, Holt, 1984. 
Baptism of Desire, Harper, 1989. 

Other 
Imagination (textbook), C. E. Merrill, 1980.
(Author of preface) Michael Dorris, The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing
Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Harper, 1989.
(Author of preface) Desmond Hogan, A Link with the River, Farrar, Straus,1989.
(With Allan Richard Chavkin and Nancy Feyl Chavkin) Conversations with Louise
Erdrich and Michael Dorris, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson), 1994.
The Falcon: A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, Penguin
(New York City), 1994.
The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year (memoir), HarperCollins (New York City),
1995.
Grandmother's Pigeon (children's book), illustrated by Jim LaMarche, Hyperion
(New York City), 1996. 

Author of short story, The World's Greatest Fisherman; contributor to anthologies,
including the Norton Anthology of Poetry; Best American Short Stories of
1981-83, 1983, and 1988; and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, in 1985 and
1987. Contributor of stories, poems, essays, and book reviews to periodicals,
including The New Yorker, New England Review, Chicago, American Indian
Quarterly, Frontiers, Atlantic, Kenyon Review, North American Review, New York
Times Book Review, Ms., Redbook (with her sister Heidi, under the joint
pseudonym Heidi Louise), and Woman (with Dorris, under the joint pseudonym
Milou North). 

FURTHER READING

Books 
Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 10, Gale (Detroit), 1993.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, Volume 39, 1986, Volume 54, 1989.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 152: American Novelists since World
War II, Fourth Series, Gale, 1995. 
Pearlman, Mickey, American Women Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family,
Space, University Press of Kentucky, 1989, pp. 95-112. 

Periodicals 

America, May 14, 1994, p. 7. 
American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1987, pp. 51-73. 
American Literature, September, 1990, pp. 405-22. 
Belles Lettres, Summer, 1990, pp. 30-1. 
Booklist, January 15, 1995, p. 893. 
Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1988, pp. 1, 6; January 1, 1994, pp. 1, 9; April 21,
1996, pp. 1, 9. 
College Literature, October, 1991, pp. 80-95. 
Commonweal, October 24, 1986, pp. 565, 567; November 4, 1988, p. 596. 
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1996, p. 244; April 15, 1996, p. 600. 
Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 5, 1986, pp. 3, 10; September 11,
1988, p.2; May 12, 1991, pp. 3, 13; February 6, 1994, p. 1, 13; May 28, 1995, p. 8;
June 16, 1996, p.3. 
Nation, October 21, 1991, pp. 465, 486-90. 
New Republic, October 6, 1986, pp. 46-48; January 6-13, 1992, pp. 30-40. 
Newsday, November 30, 1986. 
New York Review of Books, January 15, 1987, pp. 14-15; November 19, 1988, pp.
40-41; May 12, 1996, p. 10. 
New York Times, December 20, 1984, p. C21; August 20, 1986, p. C21; August
24, 1988, p. 41; April 19, 1991, p. C25. 
New York Times Book Review, August 31, 1982, p. 2; December 23, 1984, p. 6;
October 2, 1988, pp. 1, 41-42; April 28, 1991, p. 10; July 20, 1993, p. 20; January
16, 1994, p.7; April 16, 1995, p.14. 
People, June 10, 1991, pp. 26-27. 
Playboy, March, 1994, p. 30. 
Publishers Weekly, August 15, 1986, pp. 58-59; April 22, 1996, p. 71. 
Quill & Quire, August, 1995, p. 30. 
Time, February 7, 1994, p. 71. 
Times Literary Supplement, February 14, 1997, p. 21. 
Voice Literary Supplement, October, 1988, p. 37. 
Washington Post Book World, August 31, 1986, pp. 1, 6; September 18, 1988, p.
3; February 6, 1994, p. 5; April 21, 1996, p. 3. 
Western American Literature, February, 1991, pp. 363-64. 
Writer's Digest, June, 1991, pp. 28-31.* 

Source: Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Volume 62, Gale, 1998. 

by: Peter G. Beidler is Lucy G. Moses Distinguished Professor of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is the author of many publications, including Ghosts, Demons, and Henry James: The Turn of the Screw at the Turn of the Century. Gay Barton teaches English at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas.

Salon Interview with Louise Erdrich

Toni Morrison talks about finding a writer who gives one "permission" to write, someone who breaks down the barriers and allows you the self-confidence to write. Did you have any "permission-giving" writers when you first started to write? 

Morrison was one of mine. She spoke about being a mother, and she always spoke about it as a great boon to her as a writer. Previous to that I don't think I'd read anything positive. There were few mothers writing, very few mothers who would talk about the benefits. Kay Boyle was one person for whom being a mother and a writer were passionately integral. Grace Paley, she's very funny about it. She claims to have neglected her children, because it was the only way she could get things done. 

Toni Morrison's work always astounds me, that she's able to be both a mother and also admit to the cruelties of the world. It's a very hard thing for a mother to do because one almost protects the imagination against that kind of intrusion, protecting the children's imagination.  She's so valiant, she doesn't do that. Otherwise, imaginative inspirations were Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor.  

Another writer that you might want to become familiar with is: 

Arundahti Roy 

(author of  The God of Small Things)

Born in 1961 in Bengal, Arundhati Roy grew up in Kerala. She trained as an architect at the Delhi School of Architecture, but became better known for her complex, scathing film scripts. She wrote and starred in In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones, and wrote the script for Pradip Kishen's Electric Moon.  Media attention came when she spoke out in support of Phoolan Devi, who she felt had been exploited by Shekhar Kapur's film Bandit Queen. The controversy escalated into a court case, after which she retired to private life to work on her first book, The God of Small Things, which was published in 1997. The half-million pound advance on this book, more than Vikram Seth's for A Suitable Boy, shot her to fame again. As the daughter of Mary Roy, the woman whose court case changed the inheritance laws in favor of women, she was closely acquainted with the Syrian Christian traditions which feature prominently in the book. 

She says "a feminist is a woman who negotiates herself into a position where she has choices.." 

The God of Small Things, won Britain's premier book prize, the Booker McConnell, in 1997. Although Indian authors such as Salman Rushdie and Rohinton Mistry have featured in the Booker shortlist, and Rushdie's Midnight's Children won the 'Booker of Bookers', Roy is the first non-expatriate Indian author and the first Indian woman to have won this prize. To top it all, this happened in 1997, India's 50th anniversary of independence from Britain. As always, the exclusions and choices of the Booker judges created some controversy, with some critics praising the lush imagery of Roy's book while others referred to it as 'tripe'. The book has also attracted a lawsuit and angry criticism from Kerala's leftists. 

Much speculation ensued about her next project: would it be a play, another novel, or poetry? Roy squelched the gossip by saying that she might never write another novel and had no intentions of trying to rival the success of her first. In keeping with her longtime interest in social issues, she has immersed herself in causes such as the anti-nuclear movement and the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Her two major essays, The End of Imagination and The Greater Common Good are available online as well as in print. Her personal fame has drawn attention and donations to these causes, and she has also made significant monetary contributions herself. Her involvement in these causes has also attracted controversy, with some criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. 

Activism 
The Art of Spinning: How Uncle Sam turns Indian gold into straw. Roy writes about the relentless march of globalization and what it means for the people of the Third World. In tehelka.com The End of Imagination Roy on India's Nuclear Bomb. August 1998. 
Roy donates a Malayalam edition of the book to support Dalits and Dalit literature. Hindu, Feb 99. 
Roy slams rising fundamentalism. 9 Feb 99. 
The Great Indian Rape-Trick. Roy's biting criticism of Shekhar Kapur's film about Phoolan Devi, 'Bandit Queen'. A
pair of articles which led to a court case in 1994. 

Redliff news on Roy:

Six years ago, Arundhati Roy decided to write a book. Her reasons were simple enough. She had just finished work on the film Electric Moon- - ''Not a very happy experience'' -- and though she was supposed to write another script for Channel
Four, she wanted to do something that was more private.  ''The real reason was also that I had just got a computer and I like the idea of writing on it,'' she admits. ''So, I just started putting down what was going on in my head. It was a very private thing. I wouldn't show what I had written to anybody. It would just stay in the computer. It was all just coming out of me, like smoke I suppose, and I kept putting it down.'' 

Then, of course, things began to happen. Roy got involved in --- or more accurately, created -- the debate over Bandit
Queen when she wrote two pieces for Sunday. It was made clear to her that Channel Four no longer had any interest in
her screenplay and she needed to find something to do. 

The book had remained in her computer and she turned to it again. By then, she says, she had realised that she had
something there.''It took two and a half years but finally, I thought that a structure was emerging,'' she recalls, ''One day I woke up and I drew out how I thought the book would progress. That's when I realised that I had to pull
back all the smoke that was coming out of me and put the book into shape.'' 

Last May when she finished The God of Small Things, she was at some kind of crossroads in her professional life. Her film career had more or less dried up. The bank had closed her account. There was no obvious source of income. 

And yet, there was a measure of fame. Both Electric Moon and In which Annie Gives It Those Ones which she wrote had won her a dedicated cult following. Her account of the making of Electric Moon had been published in Sunday (''My first
published piece,'' she smiles) to wide acclaim and she had appeared on the cover of Society. 

The Bandit Queen controversy had added to the fame. The film's producers took the line that all would have been well had Roy not taken it on herself to attack the movie's legitimacy. Farrukh Dhondy of Channel Four, who had commissioned Electric Moon, now turned Roy-baiting into a personal Indo-Anglian cottage industry. In interviews to Sunday and other publications he dismissed her as a failed writer who was motivated by envy and bitterness while continuing to aim the odd kick at her in his weekly syndicated column. 

She says now that she paid no attention to Dhondy or to the attacks. But she does not deny that there was a sense in which she had begun to wonder where her life was going. 

''I mean, it's not as though money is very important,'' she explains. ''I don't need very much. But I have a problem because even though I think of myself as a writer, I can't write unless it comes from within. I couldn't write a column for instance. Even if somebody came to me and said 'Here's five million pounds for writing a screenplay based on this theme' I would probably say no. So I couldn't be a writer for hire." 

But she did have The God of Small Things. 

Roy says now that she was never very confident about the book. ''It is a very fragile, personal book and I have never had any perspective about it. I considered going to an Indian publisher but they tend to give advances of Rs 5,000.
However, I wasn't sure about finding a foreign publisher. I mean, why would anyone abroad be interested in the book? I am not very well educated. I haven't lived abroad. So it's not as though I am like Salman Rushdie or Vikram Seth.'' 

It was around this time that she met Pankaj Mishra, who was then an editor with Harper Collins in India. Mishra's travel book Butter Chicken in Ludhiana has been highly praised, but for Roy it had a more personal significance: one chapter is bitterly critical of her mother Mary Roy. (''I don't mind that,'' she says, ''but I think he missed the point of what my mother was doing and the environment she lived in.") 

Nevertheless, she turned to Mishra for an opinion about her book. He was immensely excited by what he read. He called Roy and said, ''Obviously, I want to publish it here but I am going to send it to a few publishers abroad.'' 

Mishra sent copies of the manuscript to three British publishers; HarperCollins in London, John Sadler, formerly of HarperCollins now with Transworld, and David Godwin, formerly of Jonathan Cape and now a literary agent. 'I think I have found the new Rushdie. This is the biggest book since Midnight's Children,' Mishra told Godwin. 

Continue with Lecture XIII.

Literature 45  - Women in Literature :  

Marjorie C. Luesebrink, MFA

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