Book Award. Currently a professor at Oklahoma
State University, where she is researching the his-
tory of her relatives, members of the Choctaw
and Southern Cheyenne tribes in Oklahoma, Ai is
planning to use this material to write a memoir.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ingram, Claudia. “Writing the Crises: The Develop-
ment of Abjection in Ai’s Dramatic Monologues.”
LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 8, no. 2 (Oc-
tober 1997): 173–192.
Kilcup, Karen. “Dialogues of the Self: Toward a The-
ory of (Re)Reading Ai.” Journal of Gender Studies
7, no. 1 (1998): 16–21.
Cassandra M. Parente
AIDS
The presence of AIDS in black literature, thematic,
linguistic, and central to setting, can be read as
part of a longer tradition of bearing witness to the
calamities that have affected black people dating
back to the transatlantic slave trade. Both contem-
poraneous autobiographical accounts of slavery
by such authors as OLAUDAH EQUIANO and FREDER-
ICK DOUGLASS and recent interpretations by TONI
MORRISON (BELOVED, 1987) and CHARLES JOHNSON
(MIDDLE PASSAGE, 1990) underscore the impor-
tance of understanding slavery as a test of black
survival. Similarly, given the high incidences of
AIDS in present-day black communities, texts in
black literature that examine AIDS are similar to
texts about slavery in speaking to the threat posed
to black individuals and the community at large.
Black literature about AIDS is a form of truth
telling. It involves being honest about a host of
ills, namely homophobia, that are at the heart of
black culture and life today. It is not surprising,
then, that much of the black literature about AIDS
has sprung from the pens of black gay men. Be-
cause their community has been decimated by the
AIDS crisis, black gay men are determined to call
to public attention their experiences as HIV-posi-
tive subjects, as well as on their relationships with
individuals who have died from the disease.
Most writing about AIDS in black literature
constitutes a political act whereby the author as-
serts his, generally speaking, gay identity proudly,
in a fashion that does not detract from his black-
ness or his place in the black community. Authors
such as MELVIN DIXON, Joseph Beam, and MARLON
RIGGS have chronicled their efforts at successfully
being part of both communities. That these in-
dividuals have also claimed HIV-positive identi-
ties is significant as well, since HIV/AIDS can be
a taboo subject in black communities: A person
with AIDS is often encouraged not to speak, and
certainly not to write, about it. That these authors
and others have defied this ideology is a testament
not only to the viability of bearing witness to cri-
sis but also to the importance of speaking truth
to power.
AIDS in black literature takes many forms, from
fiction to autobiography. Author E. LYNN HARRIS,
whose work holds immense appeal in black com-
munities, includes an AIDS plotline in his novel
Just as I Am (1994). The entire second half of the
novel is devoted to the story of Kyle Benton, best
friend to the novel’s protagonist, who learns he
is HIV positive. Harris describes how Benton’s
friends care for him during his illness and up to
the moment of his death. Benton remains an in-
spiring figure in this series of novels by Harris,
even being reincarnated for a brief appearance
at the conclusion of Abide with Me (1999), a later
book in the series.
JAMES EARL HARDY is best known for the B-Boy
Blues series of novels, the tale of two men falling
in love in urban New York City. In The Day Eazy-
E Died (2001), Hardy integrates an AIDS plotline
into the narrative. The novel is set during two
weeks in March 1995, when the central character
Raheim, learns that one of his favorite rappers,
Eazy-E, has developed AIDS and is dying. While
Raheim grapples with this news, he is informed
that his former lover David is in a Bronx hospi-
tal, also stricken with AIDS. In response, Raheim
seeks HIV testing and counseling. This action mir-
rors that of many urban black youths, particularly
black males, following the real-life HIV diagnosis
and subsequent death of Eazy-E (Eric Wright).8 AIDS