Notes from a Black Woman's Diary: Selected Works of Kathleen Collins

Kathleen Collins

Feb 2019 · HarperCollins

About this ebook

“A sweeping picture of a mega-talent who was overlooked during her lifetime.” —Vanity Fair

Relatively unknown during her life, Kathleen Collins emerged on the literary scene in 2016 with the posthumous publication of the short-story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Said Zadie Smith, “To be this good and yet to be ignored is shameful, but her rediscovery is a great piece of luck for us.”

That rediscovery continues in Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary, which spans genres to reveal the breadth and depth of the late author’s talent. The compilation is anchored by more of Collins’s striking short stories. Also collected here is the work Collins wrote for the screen and stage, including the screenplay of her pioneering film Losing Ground and the script for The Brothers, which powerfully illuminate the particular joys, challenges, and heartbreaks rendered by the African American experience. And finally, it is in Collins’s raw and prescient diaries that her nascent ideas about race, gender, marriage, and motherhood first play out on the page.

By turns empowering, exuberant, sexy, and poignant, Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary is a brilliant compendium of the works of an inimitable talent, and a rich portrait of a writer hard at work.

“Dazzling. . . . [Collins’] voice and vision are idiosyncratic and pitiless, combining mischief and crisp authority, formal experimentation and deep feeling . . . [A] stylish, morally disheveling work.” —New York Times

“Collins proves her literary power across mediums.” —Time

“Searing commentary on race and gender.” —Library Journal, starred review

“A timely reclamation of a remarkable voice.” —Booklist

About the author

Kathleen Collins, who died in 1988 at age forty-six, was an African-American playwright, writer, filmmaker, director, and educator from Jersey City. She was the first black woman to produce a feature length film.