> Skip to content
  • Published: 16 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241351086
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Zami

A New Spelling of my Name




A soaring, sensual coming-of-age novel, by the legendary 'Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet'

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem. Around her, a heady swirl of passers-by, car horns, kerosene lamps, the stock market falling, fried bananas, tales of her parents' native Grenada. She trudges to public school along snowy sidewalks, and finds she is tongue-tied, legally blind, left behind by her older sisters. On she stumbles through teenage hardships -- suicide, abortion, hunger, a Christmas spent alone -- until she emerges into happiness: an oasis of friendship in Washington Heights, an affair in a dirty factory in Connecticut, and, finally, a journey down to the heat of Mexico, discovering sex, tenderness, and suppers of hot tamales and cold milk. This is Audre Lorde's story. It is a rapturous, life-affirming tale of independence, love, work, strength, sexuality and change, rich with poetry and fierce emotional power.

  • Published: 16 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241351086
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Also by Audre Lorde

See all

Praise for Zami

Excellent and evocative... personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness shine through the writing. Her experiences are painted with exquisite imagery

The New York Times

I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration. At last I felt I fitted in.

Jackie Kay

Zami is important because of its descriptions of growing up a black lesbian feminist in the 1950s, with open, unapologetic, vivid descriptions of women's relationships

Guardian

Her work is so quotable. It has the zeitgeist factor. Now, just as much as ever, we need the voice of Audre Lorde

New Statesman

I have an Audre Lorde google alert on my phone. It helps confirm how relevant my favorite black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet remains today

Huffington Post

Audre Lorde says it best

Refinery29

Lorde's examination of her multiple outsiderness pried my sheltered mind wide open

Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home (in ‘My Ten Favorite Books,’ New York Times Magazine)

Zami is just the best

Vice

Zami made me realise that I was not alone ... that I, too, could be as courageous and as loud with my truths

Elle Magazine

Zami feels larger than life - almost legendary - while remaining grounded, intimate and moving

Cosmopolitan

The truth of her writing is as necessary today as it's ever been

Guardian