Lillian Smith (writer)

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Lillian Eugenia Smith (born December 12, 1897 in Jasper , Florida , † September 28, 1966 in Atlanta , Georgia ) was an American writer who was critical of society . She was best known for her lifelong commitment against racial segregation in the southern states . Her novel Strange Fruit (1944), which was controversially discussed at the time of publication , made her widely known.

life and work

Smith was born the seventh of nine children into a middle-class family. When her father lost his company, the family moved to Clayton , Georgia . From then on, the Smiths ran a commercial summer camp for girls there (Laurel Falls Camp).

Lillian studied music as a young adult, worked in education and stayed for several years in China , where she was the director of a girls' school. From 1929 she took over the management of the Laurel Falls Camp, which she should hold when the family business was dissolved (1948). She transformed it into an innovative educational institution for girls.

Soon she entered into a (lifelong) partnership with one of the camp staff, Paula Snelling. The two women founded a small literary magazine ( Pseudopodia ) in 1936 , which encouraged black and white writers to make critical statements. The focus was on social inequality, misogyny, racism and the need for social and economic reforms. From 1937 the magazine was renamed North Georgia Review , 1942 South Today . In 1945 the project was ended.

In 1944 Smith's novel Strange Fruit was published , which was about a love affair between a black woman and a white man. The title was chosen by the publisher after a song of the same name interpreted by Billie Holiday . The author emphasized, however, that her concern was not, as in the song, solely the racism against Afro-Americans, but rather the emotional damage of colored people and whites in the "racist culture" of the southern states. After its publication, the novel was banned in several regions of the United States. That ban was lifted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt . The novel became a bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages. In 1949 Killers of the Dream was published , a collection of essays in which the author explains her view of the racist traditions of the southern states in a more fundamental way. This book was largely rejected by the public at the time.

Lillian Smith often exchanged ideas with Eleanor Roosevelt , she was friends with Martin Luther King and other black and white protagonists of the civil rights movement , in which she was continuously involved until the end of her life. Her personal focus was the situation of women and children.

In the United States, Lillian Smith has been rediscovered in recent decades as a fighter for social injustice, but also in connection with the emancipation of the lesbian lifestyle.

Works (selection)

  • Strange Fruit (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock 1944)
    • Foreign fruit (Zurich: Diana Verlag 1947)
    • Fremde Frucht (new edition with biobibliographical afterword: Berlin: Autonomie und Chaos 2018) ISBN 978-3-945980-15-6 [1]
  • Killers of the Dream (New York: WW Norton 1949)
    • Dream killer. A book on the dark madness of the white man (Hamburg: Paul Zsolnay Verlag 1951)
  • The Journey (New York: WW Norton, 1954)
  • Now Is the Time (New York: Viking Press 1955)
  • One Hour (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1959)
  • Memory of a Large Christmas (New York: Norton, 1962)
    • The fullness of the Holy Night (Zurich: Verlag der Arche 1979)

literature

  • Margaret Rose Gladney (Ed.): How Am I to be Heard? - Letters of Lillian Smith (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1993) ISBN 9780807820957
  • Margaret Rose Gladney / Lisa Hodgens (Ed.): A Lillian Smith Reader (Athens: The University of Georgia Press 2016) ISBN 9780820349985
  • Anne C. Loveland: Lillian Smith. A Southerner Confronting the South. A Biography (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press 1986) ISBN 0807113433
  • Louise Blackwell and Frances Clay: Lillian Smith (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1971)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margaret Rose Gladney: PAULA SNELLING. A SIGNIFICANT OTHER, in: Allida Mae Black, Modern American Queer History (Philadelphia 2001, pp. 69–78)
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Lillian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Lillian Eugenia (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Jasper , Florida
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 1966
Place of death Atlanta , Georgia