Bessie Smith

by Jackie Kay

Book Overview

A beautiful genre-bending tribute to the larger-than-life blues singer Bessie Smith. Scotland's National Poet blends poetry, prose, fiction, and nonfiction to create an entirely unique biography of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1899791701
• ISBN13: 9781899791705
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Absolute Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Lyrical and Thoughtful

A beautiful melody of a book, Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay evokes the life of the great blueswoman through a provocative interweaving of fact, poetry, blues lyrics, and imaginings. It is also about the awakening of a young girl's (the author's) sense of herself as female and black. If you prefer dry facts only, or are doing serious research, look to another biography. If there's a bit of repetition in this book, well, think about the blues. If you want to immerse yourself in Bessie's blues, read this book in one sitting, and read it out loud. Then get out your old vinyls and a bottle of gin, and read it again.