With this collection of fiction and memoirs by 23 black women, Danquah draws attention to a new era of writers following up the legacy established by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Jamaica Kincaid. Danquah's collection focuses on works published after 1990, when black women were facing an explosion of issues new to their generation and moving beyond the constraints of the black community physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. Excerpts from Lorene Cary's Black Ice recall her experiences at a predominately white boarding school; Danzy Senna, Rebecca Walker, Carolyn Ferrell, and Catherine E. McKinley explore the complexities of racially mixed families; Edwidge Danticat's excerpted Krik? Krak! draws parallels between the lives lost in the Middle Passage and an attempted escape from Haiti by boat. Other contributors include Veronica Chambers, Debra J. Dickerson, Itabari Njeri, and Shay Youngblood. The collection explores an array of concerns of black women: sexual and racial politics, tensions between the sexes and the races, and concepts of beauty and sexuality that are influenced and reflected in American racial mythology. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved