Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2019

Publication Title

Vitae Scholasticae

Volume

36

Issue

2

Pages

50-53

Abstract

[Introduction] Chicago, Illinois, native, Lorraine Hansberry wrote the highly acclaimed A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the first play produced on Broadway by a Black woman. The play's title is inspired by one of poet Langston Hughes's poems, "Harlem," and focuses on a Black American family with dreams of buying a home in a white neighborhood in segregated Chicago. A Raisin in the Sun is taught widely in high schools and colleges in America, and most of us who are aware of Hansberry know about the critical success of her play, but do we know much more than that about her life and contributions? Probably not. Like so many of us, Imani Perry, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton who earned a BA from Yale and a PhD and law degree from Harvard, was drawn to Hansberry through A Raisin in the Sun. In Looking for Lorraine, Perry searches for details about Hansberry's youth, college days, personal relationships, and writing life. Along the way, she unearths Hansberry's activism and significant relationships with prominent people such as her mentor, sociologist, W.E.B. Du Bois, and friends, writer James Baldwin, and singer, Nina Simone.

Rights

© 2019 International Society for Educational Biography. All rights reserved.

Included with the kind written permission of the copyright holders.

Original Publication Citation

Hinton, K. V. (2019). [Review of the book Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, by I. Perry]. Vitae Scholasticae, 36(2), 50-53.

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