TOI DERRICOTTE

The Black Notebooks

An Interior Journey

"A collection of personal journal entries accumulated over twenty years guides readers on an excursion through the mind of a woman who has been engaged in incessant warfare with the color of her skin . . . a candid and well-crafted exposé on racism." — Emerge

"[In] The Black Notebooks Derricotte, a light-skinned black woman, focuses intensely and wonderfully on blackness . . . brilliant, devastating. . . . Would I recommend it? Absolutely. To whom? Anyone interested in writing. In race. In human relationship." — Women's Review of Books

"The Black Notebooks is a sternly disciplined, unsentimental work." — New York Times Book Review

The Black Notebooks was the recipient of the Anisfield-Wolfe Award and the 1998 Caucus of the American Library Association Award and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

• "The elegant combination of defiance and devotion that is The Black Notebooks speaks volumes about how perceptions of racial identity remain sharply divided." — Essence
• "What a hard book to have written and what an important book to read." — Grace Paley
• Excerpted in the Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Pitt Magazine

Toi Derricotte is the author of four collections of poetry. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.