This Child's Gonna Live

by Sarah E. Wright

Book Overview

Sarah Wright's searing yet lyrical story of a Southern black woman's life during the depression-a period seldom accounted for in African-American literature- is as compelling as her protagonist's insistence that "this child's gonna live." In this lost literary masterpiece by a seminal figure in the Black Arts movement, a husband and wife struggle amidst the poverty of Maryland's Eastern Shore during the 1930s. "Saturated in harsh beauty," declares Tillie Olsen, "this book has been and still is for me one of the most important and indispensable books published in my lifetime." Sarah E. Wright, novelist and poet, is former vice president of the Harlem Writers Guild and is coauthor of "Give Me a Child," She lives in New York City.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0935312676
• ISBN13: 9780935312676
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A superbly written and heartrending tale

Set in a Maryland fishing village in the early 1930's, This Child's Gonna Live by Sarah E. Wright is the harshly candid story of Mariah Upshur, the African-American wife of a poor oysterman, and who is struggling to keep her family together despite smothering press of poverty and despair. This Child's Gonna Live is the superbly written and heartrending tale of a monumental effort for family survival under the harsh realities of rural poverty. Of special interest in this Feminist Press edition of an African-American literary classic is the inclusion of the Sarah E. Wright's essay, "The Writer's Responsibility".