Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-JUL-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Modern Humanities Research Association

Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature. By TRUDIER HARRIS. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. 2002. vi+218 pp. 13.99 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 0-312-29303-8.

Trudier Harris is the author of five previous books on African American literature. Her sixth makes a case for the centrality of strength as a dominant stereotype in the literary portrayal of black women. Provocative in content and tone, Saints, Sinners, Saviors provides an in-depth view of several African American literary works of the twentieth century, identifying physical and moral strength as a problematic feature, a symptom of 'disease' (p. 10) bordering on evil, which often has detrimental effects. Harris criticizes this one-dimensional pattern of...

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