Black Women's Blues: A Literary Anthology, 1934-1988

'Black women's blues' draws on a wide range of genres, including poetry, plays, essays, novels, short stories and autobiographies written by African American women. The selections "coalesce to form ... black women's blues, representing, as do the blues, both the pain of the struggle and the need to tell of it" (page xvi). The anthology presents a vivid socio-historical and psychological spectrum of Black women's experiences, illustrating the relationship between Black literature and Black history of the 20th century.