Rediscovery of the 2nd known African-American woman novelist in 19th C.

May 26, 2016 5:11 PM

Sarah E. Farro, an African-American woman, published a novel calledTrue Love in 1891. "The reason for 'True Love’s' disappearance might be simple: it takes place in England, a place Farro probably never visited, and all of its characters are white." It's been digitized and is available here and here.
posted by wendyfairy (2 comments total)

Thanks for this! It's a fascinating discovery, and that last section on the significance of not writing about race was very interesting.

I have a lot of sympathy for writers of colour in the bind of choosing whether or not to write about race. On the one hand, we would all benefit from more fiction that doesn't center whiteness in literary experiences, from more authors of colour who aren't pushed into emulating the works of people who don't resemble them because of the overwhelmingly white nature of the literary canon, from writers not minimising race as something which informs their experiences. On the other hand, it's a great source of resentment and frustration when writers of colour are only given credence when they write about race and face literary gate-keeping when they author works which don't conform to that expectation. I'm not sure how that would be redressed except for a blanket 'more writers of colour writing about things they're interested in'.
posted by Collaterly Sisters at 6:25 PM on May 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's also available in several formats on Open Library, including PDF and EPUB.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:57 PM on May 26, 2016