Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Audre Lorde traces the relationships with women that helped form her sense of self, moving from childhood and family into work, desire and the lesbian communities of mid-century New York. Her mother's efforts to protect her from racism and sexism stand alongside the knowledge gained through friendships, lovers and the women she works beside. Calling the book a biomythography, Lorde brings remembered experience into conversation with the ways a life is shaped and retold. Intimate encounters are inseparable from the social conditions surrounding them: race, class, gender and sexuality influence where belonging can be found. This autobiographical work follows the making of a writer through the people, places and connections that give her story its form.