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Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life Paperback – January 15, 1999

by bell hooks (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 45 ratings
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“bell hooks’s brave memoir of struggling to find her own work, love, and independence.” ―Gloria Steinem
With her customary boldness and insight, brilliant social critic and public intellectual bell hooks traces her writer’s journey in Wounds of Passion. She shares the difficulties and triumphs, the pleasures and the dangers, of a life devoted to writing. hooks lets readers see the ways one woman writer can find her own voice while forging relationships of love in keeping with her feminist thinking. With unflinching courage and hard-won wisdom, hooks reveals the intimate details and provocative ideas of the life path she carved out of words, lighting the way for all writers who would tread in her wake.
This memoir is an illuminating vision of a writer’s life from one of America’s treasured authors.
“I love this book. Each offering from bell hooks is a major event, as she has so much to give us.” ―Maya Angelou

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    January 15, 1999
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.65 x 8.5 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0805057226
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0805057225
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“I love this book. Each offering from Bell Hooks is a major event, as she has so much to give us.” ―Maya Angelou"

“Wounds of Passion . . . is a carefully rered portrait of difficult love.” ―Time Out New York

About the Author

bell hooks was an American author who deserved the capital letters she chose to spurn.
Born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, she used lowercase as both an homage to her maternal great-grandmother and an attempt to keep readers’ focus where it belonged: on her work. When she died in 2021, hooks left behind a lifetime of thought that was decades ahead of its time. In the heyday of feminism, when the movement claimed to represent all women equally, hooks revealed in Ain’t I a Woman―written when she was only nineteen―how the specific life experiences of Black women were being marginalized. She never lost this pioneering spirit, bringing it to bear on more than thirty books of literary criticism, children’s fiction, poetry, and autobiography, including the New York Times bestseller All About Love. A professor of English, African and Afro-American studies, American literature, and women’s studies, hooks taught at USC, Yale, among other institutions, including Berea College in her home state of Kentucky where the bell hooks center was established to honor her work. Winner of the American Book Award in 1991 for Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, a 2001 nominee for the NAACP’s Image Award, and one of Time’s 100 Women of the Year in 2020, hooks left her mark in every field she entered.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Holt Paperbacks; Reprint edition (January 15, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805057226
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805057225
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.3 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.65 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 45 ratings

About the author

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bell hooks

bell hooks

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bell hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader's 100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life, she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is now a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than seventeen books, including All About Love: New Visions; Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.

Photo by Alex Lozupone (Tduk) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
45 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Such a beautiful work by Sistah bell hooks.
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2022
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This is a must read for any writer, lover or one who aspires to do either.
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Antoinette Lillie
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2014
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I was very pleased with this book, and I would read it again. I know some my feel it controversial, but it is a great book to those who can relate to African American women and the way that society views us as a whole in some cases. I would recommend this book to other people who have an open mind without negative critical racial views.
One person found this helpful
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Allison Werth
5.0 out of 5 stars bell hooks rocks
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2001
Wounds of Passion by bell hooks is an autobiography that explains the struggles of a very independent-nonconforming-feminist-black-woman-writer from the South struggling through a difficult childhood then later trying to adapt to the "foreignness" of the academic world of California. Just like hooks, this book is not easily placed into a clearly defined category. It could be at home among works of women's studies, feminism, African-American studies, cultural criticism, or autobiographies, just to name a few. This book is not merely a memoir of bell hooks' writing life. It presents several strong statements about American society and how difficult it is (even down to the family level) to be independent and to challenge the status quo. She calls the reader to bear witness to her pain and struggles throughout her life as a black female writer.
Two intertwining voices throughout the book make it a very interesting and unique narrative. As one voice is telling the story through time as the events are happening, another voice is looking back at these events as a third person in the here-and-now. This gives a reader more than the normal single-perspective and brings the reader a little closer to the story she's telling.
One of the many statements hooks makes with Wounds of Passion is blackness does not have a universal truth. This is exemplified by the following quote explaining the fundamental differences between her and her boyfriend Mack (who was born and raised in California) throughout their long, rocky relationship. Hooks explains, "He does not feel the pain of Jim Crow. Shared black skin does not draw them closer. Her kinda blackness is strange to him. His kinda blackness I've heard about but find it hard to believe" (52).
Many social issues surface in Wounds of Passion such as domestic violence, conflicting feminist views among black and white women, racial issues of the South, stereotypes, issues of social class, and several others. But hooks does not preach or prescribe any concrete "solutions" to these problems. She seems to merely want people to recognize these problems exist, and with that acknowledgment, be taking the first step in the overall solution.
She speaks many times about how poetry and words are a place for her to escape from the harsh reality of everyday life and how she moves beyond the boundaries of race and class through books (105). "Poetry is a place of transcendence" (109). Poetry is often a place where gender and race is not usually evident or important in the words and their meanings.
Although there's never any doubt that bell hooks is a feminist black woman, she says in the following quote about two good friends of her and Mack: "Their gayness is both significant and not solely defining. This is how she wants to feel about blackness, that it can always be significant without being the only aspect of her identity that matters. The same is true of being a woman" (237-238). This outlook will hopefully be the "norm" someday. Wounds of Passion will definitely help get us there.
15 people found this helpful
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DaRRen
5.0 out of 5 stars The Return of Bell Hooks
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 1999
I have read so many of bell's books, and she is by far one of my most favorite authors; her work has greatly influenced my own thinking and writing. No one with a bit of openness and academic integrity can reject the wealth of insight bell has offered to feminism, race theory, and cultural studies.
With such a prolific career, however, there will be inevitable ups and downs. Without a doubt, bell's earliest works (ain't i a women, yearning, from margin to center, talking back...) are among her most groundbreaking; these works set the standard for studying race and gender as interrelated social phenomena. some of her later works lack the novelty and texture of her vintage writing.
for this reason, i am THRILLED to see wounds of passion. i love this book. having read bell's other books, i can appreciate the story she is telling -- it is interesting to see how her life experiences contribute to her academic writing. for those who describe the book as "self indulgent," self-centered, etc. Guess what? IT'S AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY!!! TO WHOM SHOULD SHE HAVE GIVEN THE ATTENTION????! Anyway, the book reveals how writing is often a mechanism for processing life's trials and tribulations. Congratulations, bell, on another wonderful work.
18 people found this helpful
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rainqueen
5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2003
What a treat for her fans and admirers. This is a glimpse into a brilliant mind and a radiant soul. It's also a precious companion for many black women struggling with the double loneliness and struggle of life in america and the writing life anywhere. How gracious of her to share more of her personal history with us.
Her observations are wise. Her grasp of history is absolute. Her ideas stimulate intelligent and loving thought, conversation, and action. Read this book.
2 people found this helpful
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Lori A. Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars Wounds of Passion
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2009
Verified Purchase
This book was recommended to me by a friend as a great tool to help me find my own voice in writing. It was great to learn about bell hooks' struggle to become who she is. Many of the fears that she faced were fostered by her childhood and I know that story. I enjoyed it very much and recommend it highly for aspiring writers and progressive women.
2 people found this helpful
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Dera R Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and revealing
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2001
This insight to a black woman's life learning her craft of writing is insightful and very revealing. Those who have read Ms. hooks knows she leaves no leave unturned and has a no-holds approach to telling it like it is. The abuse, both physical and mental she witnessed in her childhood home must have been painful to relive. In expressing how it was to both want to follow her love of writing and loving a black man with the same ambition is a testament to her perserverance. When she found that she was being stifled she knew she had to choose for her own well-being. Loving and writing. Can the two be done? I recommend this book as a part of black women writers.
2 people found this helpful
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