quote · Legacy record
For several years, while I searched for, found, and studied black women writers, I deliberately shut O'Connor out, feeling almost ashamed that she had reached me first. And yet, even when I no longer read her, I missed her, and realized that though the rest of America might not mind, having endured it so long, I would never be satisfied with a segregated literature. I would have to read Zora Hurston and Flannery O'Connor, Nella Larsen and Carson McCullers, Jean Toomer and William Faulkner, before I could begin to feel well read at all.
For several years, while I searched for, found, and studied black women writers, I deliberately shut O'Connor out, feeling almost ashamed that she had reached me first. And yet, even when I no longer read her, I missed her, and realized that though the rest of America might not mind, having endured it so long, I would never be satisfied with a segregated literature. I would have to read Zora Hurston and Flannery O'Connor, Nella Larsen and Carson McCullers, Jean Toomer and William Faulkner, before I could begin to feel well read at all.
Approximate author period: c. 1944 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Alice Walker
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1944 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1944; activity date not established; Wikidata Q215868, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q215868 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 100012; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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