Brief Communication: Gloria Naylor, Ann Petry, and ‘Black Feminist Regard’
November 10, 2023
AUTHOR(S): Jennifer Williams
This short essay argues that Gloria Naylor and Ann Petry's correspondence and fiction demonstrate an ethics and aesthetics of Black feminist regard. I examine their archives for letters they exchanged, publication materials Naylor provided for the reissue of Petry’s The Street, and Petry’s journal entries that reference Naylor. A chapter based on this project will be published in an edited anthology on the life and writings of Gloria Naylor which will be published in 2023.
KEYWORDS: African American literature; Black feminism; cultural criticism