No crystal stair
Subtitle: visions of race and gender in Black women's fiction
By: Gloria Wade-Gayles.
Edition: Rev. and updated.
Publisher: Pilgrim Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cleveland, Ohio
Language: eng
Number of pages: 251
Subjects: American fiction -- African American authors -- History and criticism; American fiction -- Women authors -- History and criticism; African American women -- Intellectual life; Women and literature -- United States; African American women in literature; African Americans in literature; Race relations in literature; Sex role in literature
Description: In this revised edition, Gloria Wade-Gayles analyzes selected novels by such writers as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ann Petry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Dorothy West, and Gayl Jones to offer a fresh vision of the roles - and burdens - of black women in contemporary culture.

Contending that black women are "twice burdened" and "doubly invisible" because of their race and gender. Wade-Gayles pulls us into the lives of these fascinating characters to reveal black women as they really are - struggling against isolation, alienation, loneliness, and victimization, all the while seeking wider horizons for their people and space for themselves as persons with aspirations and dreams.

No Crystal Stair is a celebration of black women writers and their collective vision of the human condition.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-247) and index.