April
5, 2002
Gloria
Naylor Closes Reading Series April 9
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Gloria
Naylor
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While the media name
firefighters, Olympic athletes, and wealthy entrepreneurs as today's
national heroes, writer Gloria Naylor points to another, unsung
group of heroes—the hidden majority of black men and women
who work hard all their lives to preserve their families and communities
against the odds of poverty, discrimination, dangerous neighborhoods,
and despair. Naylor has focused on their stories in such novels
as The Women of Brewster Place (1982) and The Men of Brewster
Place (1998). She will read from her fourth novel, Bailey's
Cafe, Tuesday, April 9, at 4 pm in Mary Woolley Hall's New
York Room. Sponsored by Mount Holyoke's English department,
the reading is the last of this year's series of readings
by contemporary writers.
"Gloria Naylor's
is a strong voice, and a compassionate one," said Brad Leithauser,
Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities. "She writes—and
speaks—with the solid, decided vigor of someone who has given
her subject its thoughtful due." Of race relations in the
United States, Naylor has said, "I think the best way to
increase racial harmony is to get to know each other. Blacks and
whites in this country now live in separate neighborhoods, worship
in separate churches, etc. With people so isolated from each other,
it is difficult to get tolerance. The first step is simply to
get to know each other."
Naylor's novels
offer one way to bridge that gap of ignorance and isolation. Her
companion novels about a block of tenement housing on the fictional
Brewster Place, for example, introduce privileged Americans to
the struggles of those who will never see the American Dream,
those for whom victory is survival itself. The Women of Brewster
Place, noted for its portrayal of black women's relationships
and search for identity, won the National Book Award for first
fiction in 1983 and was made into a popular television miniseries
starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey. Its female characters
reappear, but take a back seat, in The Men of Brewster Place,
written fifteen years later, in which Naylor examines the particular
challenges to black men in their families and communities. Her
other novels include Linden Hills (1985), Mama Day (1988), and
Bailey's Cafe (1992). Naylor has also written essays and
screenplays, as well as the stage adaptation of Bailey's
Cafe. She is founder of One Way Productions, an independent film
company intended to present positive images of the black community,
and is involved in a literacy program in the Bronx. She is currently
working on her fifth novel, Sapphira Wade.
Gloria Naylor is a
graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale University. She is the recipient
of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships
for her novels and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship
for screenwriting.
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