Ann Petry

"Petry is the writer we have been waiting for; hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose." -- Tayari Jones, New York Times Book Review The Street follows the spirited Lutie Johnson, a newly single mother whose efforts to claim a share of the American Dream for herself and her young son meet frustration at every turn in 1940s Harlem. Opening a fresh perspective on the realities and challenges of black, female, working-class life, The Street became the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.

The Street

A Novel

Narrows

Miss Muriel and Other Stories

Tituba the slave is convicted of witchcraft because the village people misunderstood her exceptional intelligence and sensitivity

Tituba of Salem Village

Born a slave, Harriet Tubman dreamed of freedom. And through hard work and her willingness to risk everything-including her life-she was able to make that dream come true.But after making her escape, Harriet realized that her own freedom was not enough. So she became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and devoted her life to helping others make the journey out of bondage. An invisible threat to plantation owners, she served as a symbol of strength and inspiration for her people. She was the legendary "Moses," delivering hundreds from the desert of slavery.With indisputable narrative skill, Ann Petry recreates the life of a woman of great strength, bravery, and unshakeable moral fiber.

Conductor on the Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman

In the 1950s, when Link Williams, a Dartmouth-educated but unemployed African American man, falls in love with Camilo Sheffield, a wealthy married white woman, the small town of Monmouth, Connecticut, is shaken to its roots

The Narrows

Like a Winding Sheet

Em clássico de escritora afro-americana, uma mulher negra, mãe solteira, tenta sobreviver no Harlem dos anos 1940, lutando contra o racismo, ataques sexuais e a pobreza. Publicado em 1946, A rua, de Ann Petry (1908-1997), tornou-se rapidamente o primeiro romance de uma autora negra a superar a marca de 1 milhão de exemplares vendidos nos Estados Unidos – e bateu o recorde com folga: vendeu 1,5 milhão de cópias. A obra consegue um equilíbrio raro ao unir observação social implacável a características da melhor tradição do thriller. A maior parte do enredo se desenvolve, efetivamente, em uma rua, a 116th Street, que tem papel-chave na vida da protagonista, Lutie Jones. É no tumultuado bairro nova-iorquino do Harlem que ela se instala, com o filho de 8 anos, num apartamento de um prédio decadente. Ali, a ex-empregada doméstica convive com um zelador de presença ameaçadora e a dona de um bordel, e busca complementar sua pouca renda como cantora em um clube de jazz. Nas palavras da escritora americana Tayari Jones, que assina o posfácio do romance, a 116th Street "é a resoluta antagonista e representa a intersecção entre racismo, sexismo, pobreza e fragilidade humana" e Lutie, "uma americana. Contudo, ela é uma americana negra, e esses termos nem sempre combinam."

Um romance

A rua

Marie of the Cabin Club

From the author of the best-selling novel THE STREET comes a stunning collection of stories that captures a remarkably diverse panorama of African-American experience in the 1950s and 1960s--stories of "a small town pharmacist's family, a New York nightclub drummer, a high school English teacher, a factory worker, a junk dealer, [and] a charmingly perceptive 12-year-old" (Christian Science Monitor). Set mainly along the East Coast, these realistic tales are, as one reviewer said, "a rare pleasure" (Belles Lettres) to read, as powerful today as they were when they were first published in 1971.

In een provinciestad in Amerika in de jaren ’50 trotseren een jonge zwarte man en een rijke, witte erfgename de taboes van hun tijd. Van de schrijfster van De straat. ‘Het nauw’ van Ann Petry brengt de lezer naar De jaren vijftig, Amerika. Het is zaterdag na middernacht in het slaperige provinciestadje Monmouth in New England en een allesverhullende dichte mist rolt aan vanaf de rivier. Link Williams staat aan de kade in Het Nauw als hij vlug naderende voetstappen hoort en de gejaagde ademhaling van een doodsbenauwde vrouw. Hij verdrijft haar achtervolger en neemt de jonge vrouw mee naar een schemerige kroeg in de buurt voor een kalmerend drankje. Als ze daar binnenkomen zien Link en zij dat hij zwart is en zij wit. Link ging ooit een beloftevolle toekomst tegemoet, maar zijn ambitie strandde achter de bar van The Last Chance. Camilo is een rijke erfgename, die de zwarte wijk van de stad heeft opgezocht om uit de sleur van haar bevoorrechte leven te breken. Nadat het toeval hen heeft samengebracht, blijven de hartstochtelijk verliefde Link en Camilo elkaar ontmoeten – en schenden daarmee op noodlottige wijze de taboes van hun tijd.

Het Nauw

Íñigo Fernández Fernández-Lomana

La calle

The Drugstore Cat

The street/ Ann Petry

The Street, by Ann Petry

A young black girl watches as her aunt’s multiple suitors disrupt her family’s privacy. The same girl, now on the cusp of adulthood, shares her family’s growing fears that her father has disappeared. Acclaimed author Ann Petry penned these and the other unforgettable narratives in Miss Muriel and Other Stories more than seventy years ago, yet in them contemporary readers recognize characters who exist today and dilemmas that recur again and again: the reluctance of African Americans to seek help from the police, the rage that erupts in a black man worn down by brutality, the tyranny that the young can visit on their elders regardless of race. Originally published between 1945 and 1971, Petry’s stories capture the essence of African American experience since the 1940s.

"The destructive effect of a summer storm on a Connecticut town is exemplified in a single family when a returned veteran finds that his wife has been unfaithful." Cf. Hanna, A. Mirror for the nation

Country Place

In one volume, two landmark novels about the terrible power of race in America from one of the foremost African American writers of the past century. Ann Petry is increasingly recognized as one of the essential American novelists of the twentieth century. Now, she joins the Library of America series with this deluxe hardcover volume gathering her two greatest works. Published in 1946 to widespread critical and popular acclaim--it was the first novel by an African-American woman to sell over a million copies--The Street follows Lutie Johnson, a young, newly single mother, as she struggles to make a better life for her son, Bub. An intimate account of the aspirations and challenges of black, female, working-class life, much of it set on a single block in Harlem, the novel exposes structural inequalities in American society while telling a complex human story, as overpriced housing, lack of opportunity, sexual harassment, and racism conspire to limit Lutie's potential and to break her buoyant spirit. Less widely read than her blockbuster debut and still underappreciated, The Narrows (1953) is Petry's most ambitious and accomplished novel--a multi-layered, stylistically innovative exploration of themes of race, class, sexuality, gender, and power in postwar America. Centered around an adulterous interracial affair in a small Connecticut town between the young black scholar-athlete Link Williams and white, privileged munitions heiress Camilo Sheffield, it is also a fond, incisive community portrait, full of unforgettable minor characters, unexpected humor, and a rich sense of history. Also included in the volume are three of Petry's previously uncollected essays related to the novels and a newly researched chronology of the author's life, prepared with the assistance of her daughter Elisabeth Petry. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Ann Petry

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