Sissie
ByPublisher Description
Sissie Joplin is dying, and her surviving children have come to say good-bye. Estranged from their mother for years, Iris and Ralph have both achieved success—Iris as a jazz singer in Europe and Ralph as a playwright—but the pain of their youth remains forever alive in their memories.
Sissie, too, remembers: the bitter struggles and the devastating tragedies; the indignities, cruelties, and deprivations visited upon a strong-willed black woman—and on the once proud men in her life ultimately defeated by a white society that at times seemed devoted to their destruction. Sissie was not always wise or fair, and her actions often did more harm than good, but she survived. And now, at the end of her life, it is time for a reckoning—and one last opportunity to heal.
A powerfully affecting family saga and a provocative indictment of racism in America,
is a magnificent achievement by John A. Williams, the award-winning author heralded by Ishmael Reed as "the best African American writer of the century."
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About John A. Williams
John A. Williams (1925–2015) was born near Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Syracuse, New York. The author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the groundbreaking and critically acclaimed novels
and
, he has been heralded by the critic James L. de Jongh as “arguably the finest Afro-American novelist of his generation.” A contributor to the
, the
, and the
, among many other publications, Williams edited the periodic anthology
and served as the African correspondent for
and the European correspondent for
and
. A longtime professor of English and journalism, Williams retired from Rutgers University as the Paul Robeson Distinguished Professor of English in 1994. His numerous honors include two American Book Awards, the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award.
Other books by John A. Williams
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