The corporeal and spiritual healing in literature by women of colors can be seen to redefine modern thought and printed text. Sarah Soanirina Ohmer traces the impact of colonization and enslavement on Black women and Black women's contributions to colonial, nineteenth, and twentieth century literature in the US, Brazil, and West Indies. Her analysis unlocks the literature's power to heal through gut-wrenching descriptions of wounds and thrilling passages of hope and liberation.

Drawing on intersectional analysis, Ohmer focuses on portrayals of trauma and spirituality in works by Toni Morrison, Conceição Evaristo, Maryse Condé, Gloria Anzaldúa, the Quilombhoje poets, and María de los Reyes Castillo. Ohmer compares literature from different countries along four thematic pathways: ghosts, mirrors, naming, and motherhood. Her analysis unlocks the literature's power to heal through gut-wrenching descriptions of wounds and thrilling passages of hope and liberation. Throughout, Ohmer weaves in her life story as a Black woman as she reflects on how colonialism, racism, sexism, and capitalism have impacted her work, traumas, and faith journey.

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Foreword AnaLouise Keating

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Keloids of Modernity

Chapter 1. Founders of Spiritual Transnational Homes: Black Female Trailblazers of Literature in the Americas

Chapter 2. From Metaphorical Conjure Women to Conjure Theory: Intersectional Approaches to the Study of Modernity and Trauma in the Americas

Chapter 3. Listening to Spirit and Healing Inherited Trauma

Chapter 4. Picking Up the Pieces: Anti-Naming and Postslavery Shock

Chapter 5. "And Now We See": Breaking Down Mirrors of Internal Colonization

Chapter 6. Recovering from (m)Otherhood: Reframing Displaced Maternal Identities

Conclusion: Healing Love

Notes

Bibliography

Index

|Sarah Soanirina Ohmer is an associate professor of Latin American studies and Africana studies at City University of New York Lehman College.