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A review by nibs
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde
emotional
slow-paced
4.0
The autobiography of Audre Lorde, following her growing up and as a young adult, becoming herself. Going into this, I thought it would follow a greater period of time in her life, but the depth in which is explored her relationship with herself, her friends and her lovers was really good.
Reading this, I realised that I knew so little of the history and stories of gay women. Through growing up Black during segregation, to growing into one of the few Black gay-girls, Lorde's differences and needing to fight to survive is an ever-present part of the book. Learning the ins and outs of gay-girl culture in New York in the 1950s and how race fits into that (spoiler: it doesn't. race was erased), was so insightful, especially with the queer history often being dominated by white cis men.
The most captivating part for me was reading about when she went to Mexico and felt visible for the first time in her life. Being seen in public as a person, and no longer looking at the ground while walking around .
There are some parts of this which are a bit unreliable, in terms of facts and dates, which I guess is how it is a memoir. It is hard to remember all the exact details. A couple of those details threw me off, and I had to go back and check, but it was fine in the end. For example, It says the kittens died from drinking turpentine as she and Muriel's relationship was falling apart, but then after they broke up and when she was going over to Kitty's place, she was thinking about whether the kittens would be fed .
Reading this, I realised that I knew so little of the history and stories of gay women. Through growing up Black during segregation, to growing into one of the few Black gay-girls, Lorde's differences and needing to fight to survive is an ever-present part of the book. Learning the ins and outs of gay-girl culture in New York in the 1950s and how race fits into that (spoiler: it doesn't. race was erased), was so insightful, especially with the queer history often being dominated by white cis men.
The most captivating part for me was reading about when she went to Mexico
There are some parts of this which are a bit unreliable, in terms of facts and dates, which I guess is how it is a memoir. It is hard to remember all the exact details. A couple of those details threw me off, and I had to go back and check, but it was fine in the end. For example,
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicide, Rape, and Self harm
Minor: Animal death