Daryl Cumber Dance – författare

" . . . a rare combination of inclusiveness and honesty. . . . cogent introduction[s] . . . confirm the central point of the tales: a search for cultural identity and freedom. First-rate." —Library Journal" . . . deserves a place alongside the classic collection of Negro tales, Mules and Men. Folktales are the stories people tell, and Shuckin' and Jivin' presents a splendid representative sheaf of the stories black Americans of all social classes tell today . . . . Professional folklorists will applaud Dance's candor and scholarly rigor." —Richard M. DorsonAn exciting new collection of Black American folklore, running the gamut from anecdotes concerning life among the slaves to obviously contemporary jokes. In their frank expression of racial attitudes and unexpurgated wit, these tales represent a radical departure from earlier collections.

There is perhaps no other person who has been so often and obsessively featured in any writer’s canon as Jamaica Kincaid’s mother, Annie Drew. In this provocative new book, Daryl Dance argues that everything Kincaid has written, regardless of its apparent theme, actually relates to Kincaid’s efforts to free herself from her mother, whether her subject is ostensibly other family members, her home nation, a precolonial world, or even Kincaid herself.A devoted reader of Kincaid’s work, Dance had long been aware of the author’s love-hate relationship with her mother, but it was not until reading the 2008 essay ""The Estrangement"" that Dance began to ponder who this woman named Annie Victoria Richardson Drew really was. Dance decided to seek the answers herself, embarking on a years-long journey to unearth the real Annie Drew.Through interviews and extensive research, Dance has pieced together a fuller, more contextualized picture in an attempt to tell Annie Drew’s story. Previous analyses of Kincaid’s relationship with her mother have not gone beyond the writer’s own carefully orchestrated and sometimes contrived portraits of her. In Search of Annie Drew offers an alternate reading of Kincaid’s work that expands our understanding of the object of such passionate love and such ferocious hatred, an ordinary woman who became an unforgettable literary figure through her talented daughter’s renderings.