To Be Young, Gifted and Black

A Memoir with an Introduction by James Baldwin

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This new edition of To Be Young, Gifted and Black includes a new Preface by Jewell Handy Gresham Nemiroff and James Baldwin's Introduction to the first edition. Assembled from Hansberry's plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, To Be Young, Gifted and Black records a life of passionate engagement and spectacular accomplishment. It follows the author from her childhood in Chicago (where her family encountered vicious resistance when it moved into a white neighborhood), through her arrival in New York, where the triumph of A Raisin in the Sun made her famous virtually overnight, to her death at the tragically early age of thirty-four. With this book, which inspired a play that has been performed almost as often as Raisin itself, Hansberry transformed her own life story into a work that has moved and inspired a generation of readers.
Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) electrified the theatrical world with her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, which won the New York Critics Circle Award for the 1958-59 season. Before her tragic death from cancer at the age of 34, she had already produced a remarkable body of work, including The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and Les Blancs. Her former husband and literary executor, the late Robert Nemiroff, posthumously produced and published her To Be Young, Gifted and Black and the musical Raisin. View titles by Lorraine Hansberry
"Suffused with the light that was Lorraine . . . one hears that inflection of voice, the exact timbre of the laugh." --James Baldwin

"An extraordinary achievement. . . . . Brilliantly alive." --The New York Times

"Inspired and inspiring. . . . A work of glowing beauty." --San Francisco Examiner

"I advise anyone who is interested in the human condition, black or white, to read it." --Newsday

About

This new edition of To Be Young, Gifted and Black includes a new Preface by Jewell Handy Gresham Nemiroff and James Baldwin's Introduction to the first edition. Assembled from Hansberry's plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, To Be Young, Gifted and Black records a life of passionate engagement and spectacular accomplishment. It follows the author from her childhood in Chicago (where her family encountered vicious resistance when it moved into a white neighborhood), through her arrival in New York, where the triumph of A Raisin in the Sun made her famous virtually overnight, to her death at the tragically early age of thirty-four. With this book, which inspired a play that has been performed almost as often as Raisin itself, Hansberry transformed her own life story into a work that has moved and inspired a generation of readers.

Author

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) electrified the theatrical world with her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, which won the New York Critics Circle Award for the 1958-59 season. Before her tragic death from cancer at the age of 34, she had already produced a remarkable body of work, including The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and Les Blancs. Her former husband and literary executor, the late Robert Nemiroff, posthumously produced and published her To Be Young, Gifted and Black and the musical Raisin. View titles by Lorraine Hansberry

Praise

"Suffused with the light that was Lorraine . . . one hears that inflection of voice, the exact timbre of the laugh." --James Baldwin

"An extraordinary achievement. . . . . Brilliantly alive." --The New York Times

"Inspired and inspiring. . . . A work of glowing beauty." --San Francisco Examiner

"I advise anyone who is interested in the human condition, black or white, to read it." --Newsday

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