0 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
Toni Cade Bambara (1939–1995)
Feminist activist and writer whose collection of stories Gorilla, My Love (1972)
helped to establish an African American female voice in fiction. Her short stories,
essays, and interviews have been collected as Deep Sightings & Rescue Missions:
Fiction, Essays, and Conversations (1999).
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (1947– )
Poet born in Beijing and raised in Massachusetts. Her works include The Heat
Bird (1983), Empathy (1989), Sphericity (1993), Endocrinology (1997), Four
Year Old Girl (1998), Nest (2003), and I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems
(2006).
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000)
Poet whose 1950 Pulitzer Prize for the collection Annie Allen (1949) was the first
won by an African American. Her other works include A Street in Bronzeville
(1945), Selected Poems (1963), Riot (1969), The Near Johannesburg Boy and Other
Poems (1986), and Blacks (1987).
Rita Mae Brown (1944– )
Writer whose first novel, Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), explicitly addressed lesbian
themes. She has “coauthored” with her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, a series of mystery
novels, beginning with Wish You Were Here (1990), featuring the feline protagonist
Mrs. Murphy.
Dorothy Bryant (1930– )
Novelist whose first book, Ella Price’s Journal (1972), features a stock character
from the 1970s: a woman who begins to question her suburban-housewife role.
Her second book, the speculative utopian novel The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You
(1976), is regarded as a foundational feminist novel.
Ana Castillo (1953– )
Chicana poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her works include the novels The Mix-
quiahuala Letters (1986), Sapogonia (1990), So Far from God (1993), Peel My Love
Like an Onion (1999), and The Guardians (2007); the short-story collection Lov-
erboys (1996); and My Father Was a Toltec and Selected Poems, 1973–1988 (1995).
Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954– )
Chicana–Native American poet who is the author of Emplumada (1981)—win-
ner of the American Book Award—and Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and
Hunger (1991).
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982)
Korea-born writer who was raised in California and is known for her experimen-
tal novel Dictee (1982).
Denise Chávez (1948– )
Chicana author who began her career as a writer of one-act plays but found rec-
ognition for The Last of the Menu Girls (1986), a collection of interrelated stories
that was published as a novel. Her other works include Face of an Angel (1994)
and Loving Pedro Infante (2001).