Zami – Audre Lorde

One of the BBC''s ''100 Novels That Shaped Our World''If I didn''t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people''s fantasies for me and eaten aliveA little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem, weak and half-blind. On she stumbles – through teenage pain and loneliness, but then to happiness in friendship, work and sex, from Washington Heights to Mexico, always changing, always strong. This is Audre Lorde''s story. A rapturous, life-affirming autobiographical novel by the ''Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet'', it changed the literary landscape.''Her work shows us new ways to imagine the world … so many themes of Audre''s work have endured'' Renni Eddo Lodge, author of Why I''m No Longer Talking to White People About Race''I came across Audre Lorde''s Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration'' Jackie Kay