Derricotte, Toi : University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Campus
Toi Derricotte is the author of four collections of poetry. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.
Review
"The Black Notebooks is the most profound document I have read on racism in America today. . . . [It] is
not just one of the best books on race I have ever read but just simply one of the best books I have ever read."
--Sapphire
"A collection of personal journal entries accumulated over twenty years guides readers on an excursion through
the mind of a woman who has been engaged in incessant warfare with the color of her skin . . . a candid and well-crafted
exposé on racism."
--Emerge
"[In] The Black Notebooks Derricotte, a light-skinned black woman, focuses intensely and wonderfully on blackness
. . . brilliant, devastating. . . . Would I recommend it? Absolutely. To whom? Anyone interested in writing. In
race. In human relationship."
--Women's Review of Books
"The Black Notebooks is a sternly disciplined, unsentimental work."
--New York Times Book Review
"The elegant combination of defiance and devotion that is The Black Notebooks speaks volumes about how perceptions
of racial identity remain sharply divided."
--Essence
"What a hard book to have written and what an important book to read."
--Grace Paley
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Web Site, April, 2000
Summary
The Black Notebooks is one of the most extraordinary and courageous accounts of race in this country, seen through
the eyes of a light-skinned black woman and a respected American poet. It challenges all our preconceived notions
of what it means to be black or white, and what it means to be human.
The Black Notebooks was the recipient of the Anisfield-Wolfe Award and the 1998 Caucus of the American Library
Association Award and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Excerpted in the Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Pitt Magazine.
