Gloria Naylor, Mama Day

Philathia Bolton (University of Akron)

Ed. by Stephen E. Meats, Pittsburg State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1988

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Gloria Naylor esteemed herself as a novelist during the 1980s within a time period recognized as a renaissance for U.S. black women writers who had begun publishing in unprecedented numbers. She received mainstream recognition with the 1982 debut novel

The Women of Brewster Place

. It not only received the National Book Award, but critics would go on to regard it as her most popularly received. It also was the only one of her novels to cross over into film. Naylor’s examination of intra-racial conflict and identity politics related to sexual orientation, class, and gender through this piece conveys a shared sensibility had among black women writers who, in the words of critic Nellie McKay, were driven by “impulse toward an honest, complicated, and varied expression of the meaning of…

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3415 words

Citation: Bolton, Philathia. "Mama Day". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 July 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35204, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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