Zami: A New Spelling of my Name (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Lesbianism – The book describes the way lesbians lived in New York City, Connecticut and Mexico during the 1950s through 1970s. I'm totally fascinated by the term Lorde coined, "biomythography" - I read here that she was quoted to have said biomythography "has the elements of biography and history of myth. In other words, it’s fiction built from many sources. This is one way of expanding our vision." Lorde refers to this as a biomythography, which is a combination of biography, myth and history. Lorde says that the word Zami is a Carriacou word (Carriacou is a small island in the Caribbean where Lorde’s mother was born) which means women who work together as friends and lovers. This is, amongst other things, a book about love. It follows Lorde’s formative years and takes us up to around 1960. There is a great deal about racism, being a lesbian in 1950s America, friendship and community and Lorde’s difficult relationship with her mother. Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing."

Lorde writes very well and has the ability to sum things up in a rather pithy way, as she sums up the 1950s: Sadly I didn't love this as much as I thought I would, although parts of it I did love and there is some stunningly beautiful writing. Especially in the first half I had trouble emotionally connecting with the character Audre--I'm not sure if that was my state of mind or the writing style. I also wanted to know more about certain parts of Lorde's life (poetry, libraries) and less about her sex life (haha no judgment if your preferences are the other way around).A woman in her late teens/early 20s being able to afford a one bedroom apartment in a major eastern city while earning a single working-class income (and being able to attend college for free), without being saddled with crippling debt, is a set of lived experiences that is literally unthinkable in the America of 2021. Lynn, a lesbian who lives with Muriel and Audre for a while and is their mutual lover during this time Although a linear account of her life in the traditional autobiography sense, it’s also very much about the women who made Audre Lorde what she was, from the start: her mother and her forebears, her sisters, high school friends, and lovers - a web of women’s lives with Audre at the centre. That sounds much more nurturing than it actually was; most of these relationships were fraught, with her mother especially, and the narrative is shot through with pain and loss. I was disappointed to see her label butch femme culture as inherently oppressive role playing and rolled my eyes at her statement saying she could tell who is a lesbian because she's never attracted to straight women. I can understand her having those thoughts at that time in her life, but it felt weird to have them presented uncritically by Lorde decades later. In Mexico, she experienced a great deal of happiness and freedom. She attended university classes, explored Mexico City, and became acquainted with a community of lesbians who were strong, independent, and represented exactly the kind of woman that Lorde wanted to be. She spent most of her time with Eudora, an older woman for whom she had strong feelings. Eudora was unstable, but taught Lorde profound lessons in life and love.

She is right about so much, and so much of what she says we desperately need to hear in these broken and divided times. Gennie, a.k.a. Genevieve, Audre's closest friend in high school who takes dance classes and commits suicide. The first person she consciously, truly loves. This is not an easy read and repays time and careful reading. It is a great book, one that really should be much more widely known, especially here in the UK. Lorde expresses herself very well: Ginger, Audre's colleague from the factory at Stamford; Audre's first female lover. Audre later moved in with Ginger and her Mom, and paid rent for room and board.When Lorde returned to New York she roomed with a white progressive woman named Rhea. She took on a variety of jobs, but her race made it difficult to find something that inspired her or paid her fairly. She made friends and was part of the Greenwich Village lesbian scene, though she still felt like an outsider of sorts. She was in college throughout these years, knowing she had to get a degree or she would not have much of a future.

Failing in college and eager to escape from New York, Audre moves to Stamford, Connecticut, and takes a job in a factory. There, she begins a relationship with one of the other workers, a woman called Ginger who has already been married and divorced. Even after they begin sleeping together, Audre is uncertain about the nature of her relations with Ginger, who seems to enjoy sex with women but not to see it as any kind of serious commitment. In one scene, Audre's mother hits her for not understanding racism, even though she has done her utmost to prevent her from knowing and understanding it, has made the topic of race taboo. Is she angry with the people who hurt her daughter or frustrated that she can't control the world to protect her? In any case, the punishment doesn't make sense, revealing the divisiveness of white supremacy, the power it has to restrict and shrink love.Lorde wrote about being an outsider. To read her experiences today probably doesn't mean a lot to many readers because a lot has changed in the world since Lorde was young (at least on paper - I argue things haven't changed much at all except no one likes to talk about it openly). But I have always been an outsider in my own way, and I could relate to Lorde's story even though we have very little in common. She knew that you could be an individual but also to be made up of every person we have shared a piece of our history with, for better or worse. Lorde started a serious relationship with Muriel, a young Italian woman with a history of mental instability. The two of them were madly in love and moved in together, but eventually Muriel cheated on Lorde and mentally broke down. Lorde was devastated and found it difficult to extricate herself from the relationship, but finally the two of them separated. She did not think she would be able to be with anyone ever again, and was profoundly depressed.

I think it would not be hyperbolic to say that reading this linked piece by her at the age of about 19 completely changed me and my view of the world: After finishing high school, Audre moves out of her parents’ home and begins an affair with a white boy named Peter. She does not enjoy their sexual relationship but sleeps with him because this is the normal thing to do. They break up after a few months, but soon afterward, Audre finds out that she is pregnant and undergoes a traumatic and painful abortion. Though the physical effects last only a few days, the poems she writes for some time afterward are dark and despairing in tone. Eudora, an older woman and Audre's lover in Mexico. She was a journalist and alcoholic. She was passionate about Mexican culture and history. She had a clothing shop with her ex in the Mexican town where they lived. She had lost a breast due to cancer. Once home was a long way off, a place I had never been to but knew out of my mother’s mouth. I only discovered its latitudes when Carriacou was no longer my home.

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The nacreous lustre of New York blazes forth from the imagination of Lorde; a kaleidoscope of colours and cultures, from 1930's Harlem and the feeling or repression, desperation and poverty mixed with hope for a new future, to the bohemian 1950's Village; Lorde did not return to New York City until she heard that her father had passed away. She soon decided to move to Mexico, a place that was full of allure, especially to someone who was outside society’s margins during the repressive 1950s.