Assembled from plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, this memoir records the passionate engagement and spectacular accomplishment of the playwright of A Raisin in the Sun.
It follows Lorraine Hansberry 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. Above all, Hansberry's autobiography rings with the voice of its creator: a black woman who could be angry, loving, bitter, touchingly funny, and defiantly proud.
"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
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
Assembled from plays, essays, letters, drawings, and photographs, this memoir records the passionate engagement and spectacular accomplishment of the playwright of A Raisin in the Sun.
It follows Lorraine Hansberry 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. Above all, Hansberry's autobiography rings with the voice of its creator: a black woman who could be angry, loving, bitter, touchingly funny, and defiantly proud.
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
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
