How Am I to Be Heard?

This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966) the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race class gender and sexuality. Her books essays and especially her letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its people - white and black male and female rich and poor. Her best-known books are <i>Strange Fruit</i> (1944) a bestselling interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and <i>Killers of the Dream</i> (1949) an autobiographical critique of southern race relations that angered many southerners including powerful moderates. Subsequently Smith was effectively silenced as a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman including her lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this triple isolation - as woman lesbian and artist - from mainstream southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern prejudices with absolute clarity.