Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun PDF Author: Charles J. Shields
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250205522
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the twentieth century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. Charles J. Shields’s authoritative biography of one of the twentieth century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Lorraine Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband—her best friend, critic, and promoter. Many of the identity issues about class, sexuality, and race that she struggled with are relevant and urgent today. This dramatic telling of a passionate life—a very American life through self-reinvention—uses previously unpublished interviews with close friends in politics and theater, privately held correspondence, and deep research to reconcile old mysteries and raise new questions about a life not fully described until now.

Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun PDF Author: Charles J. Shields
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250205522
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book

Book Description
The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the twentieth century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. Charles J. Shields’s authoritative biography of one of the twentieth century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Lorraine Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband—her best friend, critic, and promoter. Many of the identity issues about class, sexuality, and race that she struggled with are relevant and urgent today. This dramatic telling of a passionate life—a very American life through self-reinvention—uses previously unpublished interviews with close friends in politics and theater, privately held correspondence, and deep research to reconcile old mysteries and raise new questions about a life not fully described until now.

Looking for Lorraine

Looking for Lorraine PDF Author: Imani Perry
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807064491
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Winner of the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction Winner of the Shilts-Grahn Triangle Award for Lesbian Nonfiction Winner of the 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 A revealing portrait of one of the most gifted and charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century. Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now. In 2018, Hansberry will get the recognition she deserves with the PBS American Masters documentary “Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart” and Imani Perry’s multi-dimensional, illuminating biography, Looking for Lorraine. After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters. Though she married a man, she identified as lesbian and, risking censure and the prospect of being outed, joined one of the nation’s first lesbian organizations. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians, including Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, among others. Looking for Lorraine is a powerful insight into Hansberry’s extraordinary life—a life that was tragically cut far too short. A Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Book for Nonfiction A 2019 Pauli Murray Book Prize Finalist

A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun PDF Author: Lorraine Hansberry
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307807444
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
"Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of Black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959. This edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff. Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of Black America—and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun." "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."

Radical Vision

Radical Vision PDF Author: Soyica Diggs Colbert
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030025833X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
A captivating portrait of Lorraine Hansberry’s life, art, and political activism--one of O Magazine's best books of April 2021 "Hits the mark as a fresh and timely portrait of an influential playwright."—Publishers Weekly In this biography of Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965), the author of A Raisin in the Sun, Soyica Diggs Colbert considers the playwright’s life at the intersection of art and politics, with the theater operating as a “rehearsal room for [her] political and intellectual work.” Colbert argues that the success of Raisin overshadows Hansberry’s other contributions, including the writer’s innovative journalism and lesser known plays touching on controversial issues such as slavery, interracial communities, and black freedom movements. Colbert also details Hansberry’s unique involvement in the black freedom struggles during the Cold War and the early civil rights movement, in order to paint a full portrait of her life and impact. Drawing from Hansberry’s papers, speeches, and interviews, this book presents its subject as both a playwright and a political activist. It also reveals a new perspective on the roles of black women in mid-twentieth-century political movements.

A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun PDF Author: Lorraine Hansberry
Publisher: Methuen Drama
ISBN: 9781474260947
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Set in 1950s Chicago, 'A Raisin in the Sun' is a classic play about a black family's struggle for equality, and the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

To Be Young, Gifted and Black PDF Author: Lorraine Hansberry
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0451531787
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“Anyone who has ever wondered what it really means to be Black will find the answer in this book.”—MINNEAPOLIS TRIBUNE To Be Young, Gifted and Black is a special kind of autobiography, in a very special voice. Both the story and the voice belong to a young woman from Chicago who moved to New York, won fame with her first play, A Raisin in the Sun—and went on to new heights of artistry before her tragically early death. In turns angry, loving, bitter, laughing, and defiantly proud, the story, voice, and message are all Lorraine Hansberry’s own, coming together in one of the major works of the Black experience in mid-twentieth-century America. “A milestone.”—TIME “Wonderfully moving and entertaining.”—Clive Barnes, THE NEW YORK TIMES “I advise anybody who is interested in the human condition, black or white, to read it.”—NEWSDAY

Civil Rights Queen

Civil Rights Queen PDF Author: Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 152474719X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • The first major biography of one of our most influential judges—an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary—that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century. • “Timely and essential."—The Washington Post “A must-read for anyone who dares to believe that equal justice under the law is possible and is in search of a model for how to make it a reality.” —Anita Hill With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, “it makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly shaped the law: Constance Baker Motley” (CNN). Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first black woman elected to the state Senate in New York, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough President, and the first black woman appointed to the federal judiciary. Civil Rights Queen captures the story of a remarkable American life, a figure who remade law and inspired the imaginations of African Americans across the country. Burnished with an extraordinary wealth of research, award-winning, esteemed Civil Rights and legal historian and dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Tomiko Brown-Nagin brings Motley to life in these pages. Brown-Nagin compels us to ponder some of our most timeless and urgent questions--how do the historically marginalized access the corridors of power? What is the price of the ticket? How does access to power shape individuals committed to social justice? In Civil Rights Queen, she dramatically fills out the picture of some of the most profound judicial and societal change made in twentieth-century America.

Raisin

Raisin PDF Author: Judd Woldin
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573680861
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
Based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Musical Drama / 9m, 6f, chorus and extras / Unit set This winner of Tony and Grammy awards as Best Musical ran for three years on Broadway and enjoyed a record breaking national tour. A proud family's quest for a better life meets conflicts that span three generations and set the stage for a drama rich in emotion and laughter. Taking place on Chicago's Southside, it explodes in song, dance, drama and comedy. "Pure magic ... dazzling! Tremen

Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window

Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window PDF Author: Lorraine Hansberry
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573615412
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This is the probing, hilarious and provocative story of Sidney, a disenchanted Greenwich Village intellectual, his wife Iris, an aspiring actress, and their colorful circle of friends and relations. Set against the shenanigans of a stormy political campaign, the play follows its characters in their unorthodox quests for meaningful lives in an age of corruption, alienation and cynicism. With compassion, humor and poignancy, the author examines questions concerning the fragility of love, morality and ethics, interracial relationships, drugs, rebellion, conformity and especially withdrawal from or commitment to the world.

A Reader's Guide to Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

A Reader's Guide to Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun PDF Author: Pamela Loos
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 9780766028302
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Presents a critique and analysis of "A Raisin in the Sun," discussing the plot, themes, dramatic devices, and major characters in the play, and includes a brief overview of Hansberry's other works.