Color Blind A Memoir

by Williams, Precious

• ISBN13: 9781596913387
• ISBN10: 159691338X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-08-03
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

Published asPreciousin the United Kingdom Born in London to a Nigerian princess, Precious Williams saw her life change radically in its first months. Her mother, deciding she couldn't raise a child, placed an ad for foster care inNursery World. A response soon came from a woman in rural Sussex, and Precious, three months old, was handed off in a basket. Nan, Precious's new foster mother, was sixty years old and white, and prided herself on being "color blind." But she might also have been shortsighted about the difficulties her black daughter would encounter. At her all-white school, Precious was taunted and ostracized, and Nan struggled to understand her daughter's troubles. Precious's birth mother would visit occasionally, providing glimpses of a different world, but eventually turned critical of a daughter who had become "too white." Retreating into her imagination, Precious forged her own identity. She emerged from the disillusionment and self-destructiveness of her teen years with a fierce resolve not to let circumstance, class, or color determine her future. Precious Williams tells her extraordinary story inColor Blind, brightly, bravely grappling with issues of identity, motherhood, and race.

Author Biography

Precious Williams is a journalist based in London. She has written for the Telegraph, the Times, Elle, Glamour, and the New York Post.

Table of Contents

"As shatteringly moving as it is incredible... This book is not so much a coming-of-age story as a harrowing coming-to-be tale... Against all odds, Williams claims her future. Gorgeously written with a fiercely honest voice, Color Blind shows that who we are is shaped by how we are nurtured, even when our histories leave damage that is as much a part of us as our shadows." -Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe

"Precious Williams upends every expectation about race, class, gender and ambition in her startlingly powerful memoir." -USA Today

"An affecting memoir about growing up in two worlds, neither quite comfortable with the other… One important theme is the trope of abandonment. Another is the ineluctable sense of being different in a place in which ordinariness is a virtue... The story moves along toward a satisfying conclusion that speaks to aspiration and desire.” –Kirkus

"[Williams'] beautifully wrought memoir reaches back deeply and generously to regain the preciousness she felt lost to her.” -Publishers Weekly

"Precious Williams' brave examination of identity and loss reminds us that by going into the heart of what we are most afraid of, we find our liberation." - Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues

"A beautiful, haunting new Dickensian tale of growing up between two mothers and two motherlands." -Catherine E. McKinley, author of The Book of Sarahs

"Raw, honest, heartbreaking, and heartwarming, Color Blind will linger in your soul long after the book is closed, reminding us all that ther is nothing more powerful on earth than the human spirit." - Donna Hill, author of What Mother Never Told Me

"Precious Williams is a vibrant, deliciously alive storyteller. With attention to the choice incandescent detail, she holds the reader in passionate immediacy of the moment. Color Blind is an unforgettable story of outrageous humor, heartbreak, and transcendence." - Lisa Teasley, author of Dive and Glow in the Dark

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