Skip to main content

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Biography

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet and essayist. She is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick, THE LOVE SONGS OF W. E. B. DU BOIS, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award, and five poetry collections, including the NAACP Image Award-winning THE AGE OF PHILLIS, also nominated for the National Book Award. 

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Books by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - Essays, Nonfiction, Social Sciences

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads. Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third crossroads: attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to white women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression. In MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life.

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - Fiction

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’ words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans --- the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great-grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers --- Ailey carries Du Bois’ Problem on her shoulders. To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors --- Indigenous, Black and white --- in the deep South.