This month’s book review is an essential novel for your reading list. First published in 1982, Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name was written by Audre Lorde, a revolutionary queer, Black, intersectional feminist lesbian who dedicated her life to fighting social injustice and oppression. I was first introduced to her work while studying English Literature at university (years ago now), and I recall the seismic shift this and the collection of essays and speeches, Sister Outsider, had in confronting my perspective of intersectional feminism. This month, as I hibernated from the cold, reminiscing about a recent trip to Mexico, I wanted to reread this novel to remind myself of its brilliance, and I’m so glad I did.
What’s ‘Zami: A New Spelling of My Name’ about?
First and foremost, Zami is a novel about loving women. The title itself carries meaning essential to the novel’s throughline: Zami is a Carriacou word, from the small Caribbean island where Lorde’s mother was born, meaning women who work together as friends and lovers.
This story gives a vivid account of Lorde’s life, mainly in the fifties, as a feminist Black lesbian in post World War II America. We follow her journey of self-discovery through relationships, social experiences and loving women. The book recounts the women who shaped Lorde’s life, moving us from Harlem to Mexico to New York City. These places are so vividly described that readers feel young Audre’s world unfolding around her.
Experiences, characters and feelings that pervade the novel investigate the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and relationships in an expansive, thoughtful and powerful feminist narrative that celebrates women. But the love story is not separate from these identity sections. In fact, it’s what weaves them all together. It is a recount of love that draws parallels between the personal and the political, as Lorde does so well.
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By sharing her story, Lorde introduces us to the women who shaped her. We see them through her eyes, revealing her deep empathy and understanding towards others, despite their differences. Lorde is searching for a sense of belonging and authenticity in a society that so unjustly treats her as an outsider.
What’s interesting is that the novel sets out to be a celebration of these women, but so often they cause her pain and distress, such as her complicated relationship with her mother. Still, she sees and understands the need for connection between women and our needs and desires to love each other as redemptive in a cold, disenchanted world.
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What stands out?
The prose is crisp and sensual, falling into beautiful poetic recollections at times that make the storytelling and landscapes feel cinematic as we are invited to look back on Lorde’s life with unflinching honesty.
Reflecting upon life in New York City in the 50s, this novel and its carefully crafted prose feel surprisingly contemporary. It is a pursuit and celebration of community in the face of oppression happening on multiple levels, rich in poetic descriptions and accounts of the lesbian bar scene that flourished in New York post-world war II, which, at this moment in time, is an enticing world to step into from a modern perspective, when so little is known about lesbian history in the mainstream and so much of it has been erased in one way or another. The people and the bars feel so vivid to us, which, from our contemporary standpoint, as lesbian and queer venues continuously face closures, feels magical.
Lorde coined the term “biomythography” to describe her story. In Black Women Writers At Work, edited by Claudia Tate, Lorde 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.”
What is clear is how much of a pioneer Audre Lorde was, not only in writing this novel but also in how her sense of self takes shape throughout, and in the future she envisions as possible. Her writing and lived experience have shaped so much of what we think of in feminism today.
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The verdict?
Zami is essential reading for queer women, not only for its lyrical storytelling but for the way it forges space for identity and solidarity. Alongside Lorde’s other works, it stands as a cornerstone of queer feminist literature and perhaps will be one of the most important novels you ever read.
Extract from ‘Zami: A New Spelling of My Name’
“Images of women flaming like torches adorn and define the borders of my journey, stand like dykes between me and the chaos. It is the images of women, kind and cruel, that lead me home.”
Our star rating
You can order a copy of Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde via bookshop.org. Want more sapphic book recs? Check out last month’s book rec, The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden here.
Nonchalant x
