Whatever Happened to Interracial Love
By (Author) Kathleen Collins
Granta Books
Granta Books
5th March 2018
1st February 2018
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Short stories
Ethnic studies
Civics and citizenship
813.54
Paperback
192
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 11mm
140g
It is the long, hot summer of 1963 and New York is filled with lovers, dreamers and protestors. Young African-American women grow out their hair and discover the taste of new freedoms. Young men, white and black, travel south to fight against segregation, praying for a society in which love is colour-free.
Written in the late 1960s and early 1970s but overlooked in Kathleen Collins's lifetime, these stories mark the debut of a masterful writer whose electrifying voice was almost lost to history.
Born in New Jersey in 1942, Kathleen Collins was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement who went on to carve out a career for herself as a playwright and filmmaker during a time when black women were rarely seen in those roles. Though she is now considered a pioneer, Collins's work was overlooked and forgotten till 2015 when her film Losing Ground premiered at the Lincoln Center as part of a series on African-American filmmakers, and was hailed as a masterpiece. She died in 1988, aged just 46.