Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, “Dorothy West’s Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color” (Rutgers UP, 2012)

New Books in African American Studies · Mar 9, 2012 · 1h 11m

One lesson that the ever-present trickster figure in African American folklore teaches is how to use signifying to protect one’s intimate self. A challenge of writing Dorothy West’s life is getting beyond the masks she presents before the ever-prying gaze. To get around the problem, the biographer must think in unconventional ways. In Dorothy West’s Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color (Rutgers University Press, 2012), Cherene Sherrard-Johnson abandons the old battle between fact versus fiction; instead, she focuses on Dorothy West’s masks and what they show. Sherrard-Johnson respectfully…