Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation by Janaka Bowman Lewis

Published April 2023

Available from the University of South Carolina Press.

In Light and Legacies, Janaka Bowman Lewis explores Black girlhood and the literary history of “Black Girl Magic” in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The author showcases activism and protest themes in literature through work by women writers such as Toni Morrison and Toni Cade. Both enlightening and personal, Lewis brilliantly weaves accounts of her own journey together with the liberating stories that shaped her and so many others.

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