Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara

by Holmes, Linda Janet

• ISBN13: 9781592136247
• ISBN10: 1592136249
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-01
• Publisher: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Summary

InSavoring the Salt, a host of poets, scholars, writers, political activists and filmmakers recall Toni Cade Bambara, a woman whose voice and vision played a vital role in shaping African American culture in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Bambara's multifaceted career took off with the publication of her collection of stories,Gorilla, My Lovein 1972 and ended abruptly with her death in 1995. In that short time, she produced an extraordinary body of work - more stories, a novel, a book of non-fiction, a documentary film - and remained dedicated to teaching and political work. The book examines these aspects of Bambara's life and work; each section begins with an excerpt from her writings, some unpublished until now. The notable contributors - Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, Bevery Guy-Sheftall, Nikki Giovanni, Avery Gordon, Audre Lorde, and Sonia Sanchez - offer insights into her work, celebrations of her indomitable spirit, and assessments of her enduring influence.Savoring the Saltis a book for her loyal readers and for those coming to her work for the first time.

Author Biography

Linda Janet Holmes is a writer, independent scholar, and activist. She is also co-author of Listen To Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife.



Cheryl A. Wall is Professor of English at Rutgers University, and the author of Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition, and Women of the Harlem Renaissance. She is the editor of The Writings of Zora Neale Hurston (2 volumes) and Changing Our Own Words: Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword: Conjuring by Any Other Name
Life/Work
Introduction: Savoring the Salt	p. 3
Poised for the Light	p. 7
Toni's Obligato: Bambara and the African American Literary Tradition	p. 27
Writing from Laughter, Writing from Rage
"A Sort of Preface "	p. 45
Straight-Up Fiction: Sitting Down with Toni Cade Bambara's Gorilla, My Love	p. 46
Searching for the Mother Tongue: An Interview with Toni Cade Bambara	p. 58
The Language of Soul in Toni Cade Bambara's Re/Conceived Academy	p. 70
Translating the Salt	p. 81
"She was just outrageously brilliant": Toni Morrison Remembers Toni Cade Bambara	p. 88
The Making of Paper (for Toni Cade Bambara)	p. 100
"Making Revolution Irresistible"
From The Vietnam Notebooks	p. 105
Toni	p. 108
Cuba	p. 113
Toni Cade Bambara, Black Feminist Foremother	p. 115
At the Edges of the World	p. 127
How Do You Measure a Revolution? Lessons Learned from Toni Cade	p. 129
Drive This Thing	p. 137
Teaching Usable Truths
From "The Children Who Get Cheated"	p. 145
Dear Toni	p. 148
We Drove Together: Remembering Toni Cade Bambara	p. 151
Lessons in Boldness, 101	p. 154
A Timeless Truthteller	p. 160
T.C.B.- Taking Care of Business	p. 165
The Feeling of Transport	p. 170
Teaching Toni Cade Bambara Teaching: Learning with the Children in Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson"	p. 181
Toni Cade Bambara	p. 195
Guerrilla Filmmaking
"Why Black Cinema? (1987)"	p. 199
Asserting My In(ter)dependence: The Evolution of NO!	p. 206
Things That Toni Taught Me	p. 215
"Have to be whole to see whole"
From Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions	p. 223
Toni Cade Bambara: A Political Life of the Spirit	p. 226
Toni Cade Bambara to the Bone: Cultural Worker in the Black World and the South	p. 36
Terror at Home: Naturalized Victimization in Those Bones Are Not My Child	p. 244
"Something more powerful than skepticism"	p. 265
"Remembering and Honoring Toni Cade Bambara	p. 277
Contributors	p. 281
Index	p. 285
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