Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB PICKSHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE AND THE LAMBDA AWARD*'Absolutely incredible. Beautiful, powerful writing. These pages will stay with me forever' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of QUEENIE*'A gift as big, beautiful and complicated as living itself' Jacqueline Woodson, author of RED AT THE BONE*'Hilariously funny and quietly devastating' Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PATSY and HERE COMES THE SUN*'There are three books on earth that I would give anything to be able to write and reread until the suns burns us up. Big Girl is one of those books' Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVYGrowing up in rapidly gentrifying 90s Harlem, Malaya struggles to fit into a world that makes no room for her. She's funny, creative and smart, but all people see - even those who love her - is her size. At eight, she is forced to go to Weight Watchers; at twelve, her parents fear she'll be taken from them; by sixteen, a gastric bypass is discussed. But tensions at home are mounting as rapidly as Malaya's weight, and soon a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms... An extraordinary debut novel shot through with remarkable nuance and tenderness, Big Girl is the unforgettable portrait of a queer Black girl as she learns to take up space in the world.

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB PICKSHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE AND THE LAMBDA AWARD*'Absolutely incredible. Beautiful, powerful writing. These pages will stay with me forever' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of QUEENIE*'A gift as big, beautiful and complicated as living itself' Jacqueline Woodson, author of RED AT THE BONE*'Hilariously funny and quietly devastating' Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PATSY and HERE COMES THE SUN*'There are three books on earth that I would give anything to be able to write and reread until the suns burns us up. Big Girl is one of those books' Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVYA THING IS MIGHTY BIG WHEN TIME AND DISTANCE CANNOT SHRINK ITIt was a quote by Zora Neale Hurston. Malaya liked the words. The message was a mouthful of meaning, and it changed each time she read it. At first it had seemed ominous, but now she looked at it differently. She wondered for the first time if there could be something good about bigness, something mighty about not shrinking, after all. Growing up in rapidly gentrifying 90s Harlem, Malaya struggles to fit into a world that makes no room for her. She's funny, creative and smart, but all people see - even those who love her - is her size. At eight, she is forced to go to Weight Watchers; at twelve, her parents fear she'll be taken from them; by sixteen, a gastric bypass is discussed. On good days, Malaya braids bright colours into her hair, turns up Biggie Smalls on her Walkman, and strides through Harlem, his words galvanising her; on bad days, she doesn't leave her bed other than for furtive trips for the forbidden food that will comfort her - for a while. Big Girl is an unforgettable portrait of a queer Black girl as she learns to take up space in the world on her own terms.

"Alive with delicious prose and the cacophony of '90s Harlem, Big Girl gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn-out ideas, who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame." --Janet Mock Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church's stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem's forbidden street foods. For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions--fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors' appointments--don't work on Malaya. As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand "ladyness" and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called "femininity" that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya's weight. Nothing seems to help--until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms. Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is "filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don't always fit with the outside world" (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America.

"Alive with delicious prose and the cacophony of '90s Harlem, Big Girl gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn-out ideas, who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame." --Janet Mock Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church's stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem's forbidden street foods. For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions--fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors' appointments--don't work on Malaya. As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand "ladyness" and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called "femininity" that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya's weight. Nothing seems to help--until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms. Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is "filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don't always fit with the outside world" (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America.

Winner of the Modern Language Association (MLA)'s William Sanders Scarborough Prize From Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, and Bessie Head, to Zanele Muholi, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Missy Elliott, Black women writers and artists across the African Diaspora have developed nuanced and complex creative forms. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ventures into the unexplored spaces of black women's queer creative theorizing to learn its languages and read the textures of its forms. Moving beyond fixed notions, Sullivan points to a space of queer imagination where black women invent new languages, spaces, and genres to speak the many names of difference. Black women's literary cultures have long theorized the complexities surrounding nation and class, the indeterminacy of gender and race, and the multiple meanings of sexuality. Yet their ideas and work remain obscure in the face of indifference from Western scholarship. Innovative and timely, The Poetics of Difference illuminates understudied queer contours of black women's writing.

Winner of the Modern Language Association (MLA)'s William Sanders Scarborough Prize From Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, and Bessie Head, to Zanele Muholi, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Missy Elliott, Black women writers and artists across the African Diaspora have developed nuanced and complex creative forms. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ventures into the unexplored spaces of black women's queer creative theorizing to learn its languages and read the textures of its forms. Moving beyond fixed notions, Sullivan points to a space of queer imagination where black women invent new languages, spaces, and genres to speak the many names of difference. Black women's literary cultures have long theorized the complexities surrounding nation and class, the indeterminacy of gender and race, and the multiple meanings of sexuality. Yet their ideas and work remain obscure in the face of indifference from Western scholarship. Innovative and timely, The Poetics of Difference illuminates understudied queer contours of black women's writing.

Pat Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969; they began exchanging letters regularly five years later. Over the next fifteen years, Lorde and Parker shared ideas, advice, and confidences through the mail. They sent each other handwritten and typewritten letters and postcards often with inserted items including articles, money, and video tapes. Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989 gathers this correspondence for readers to eavesdrop on Lorde and Parker. They discuss their work as writers as well as intimate details of their lives, including periods when each lived with cancer. Sister Love is a rare opportunity to glimpse inside the minds and friendship of two great twentieth century poets.