A review by amawomps
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography by Audre Lorde

4.0

I've never read about the life of a gay, black woman in the turbulent times of the 40's throughout the 80's in America. I'm somewhat disappointed that I never read about this way of life sooner, as I guess it never drew me in enough for whatever reason. This book reminds me of "She's come undone" by Wally Lamb, which I had previously thought was my favorite autobiography even though it was fiction; this book however was completely true, and so vivid were the details that after reading I feel as though I've lived an entire life, one so completely different from my own. Reading about other perspectives is the point of autobiographies, or in this case, biomythographies, and I certainly feel a bit more aware than I was before. Lorde wrote so beautifully it's hard to imagine that the girls she wrote about were real at all, and that she even took part in the sex which she so fruitfully described.