Despite the rampant racism of this era that Lorde encountered in her daily life, her mother attempted to shield her from it. When the family takes a trip to Washington, D.C., they are not allowed to eat ice cream at a lunch counter because of Jim Crow laws. The family's landlord hangs himself for having to rent his flat to Black people.

Lorde does not speak until age four, when she declares that she wants to read, and promptly follows through on this desire. Her parents and other adults, especially her mother, discipline her harshly for insolence. Her two older sisters, Phyllis and Helen, are very close, but are rarely mentioned in Zami and Lorde spends little time with them. Lorde is legally blind from a very young age, isolating her even further from her surroundings and a family from which she does not receive much warmth or affection. Plot summary Īudre Lorde grows up in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s, a child of Black West Indian parents. The name proves fitting: Lorde begins Zami writing that she owes her power and strength to the women in her life, and much of the book is devoted to detailed portraits of other women. In the text, Lorde writes that 'Zami' is 'a Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers', noting that Carriacou is the Caribbean island from which her mother immigrated. It started a new genre that the author calls biomythography, which combines history, biography, and myth. 'er perfectly ripened prose moves along in seemingly effortless sentences that are vivid, charming, nostalgic, hilarious, rich, succulent, sensual, and erotic, but always at the service of the art.Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a 1982 biomythography by American poet Audre Lorde. 'Filled with finely distilled reflection, as sage and resonant as ancient wisdom literature.' ( Ms. It keeps unfolding page after page.' ( Off Our Backs)

Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It especially relates to.the women who have shaped her. From the author's vivid childhood memories of Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde's work is cyclical. 'Among the elements that make the book so good are it's personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness, characteristics that shine through the writing, bespeaking the evolution of a strong and remarkable character.' ( The New York Times) In this extraordinary tale, Lorde weaves a narrative tapestry out of the threads of her own life - from her family's immigration to New York through her own coming of age - and the lives of the women who shaped her. Audre Lorde pioneered 'biomythography' in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, originally published in 1982.

Zami a new spelling of my name