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With a Foreword by James Baldwin
'Beautiful, timeless and relevant' Jacqueline Woodson
Depression-era Harlem is home for twelve-year-old Francie Coffin and her family, and it's both a place of refuge and of danger. Her beloved father becomes a number runner when he is unable to find legal work, and while one of Francie's brothers dreams of becoming a chemist, the other is in a gang. Francie, too, is a dreamer, but women in her neighbourhood have limited prospects, either selling their bodies on the streets, running poker games or having a baby every year. There are risks in everything, from going to the movies to walking down the block.
'A remarkable heroine. Tough, resourceful, darting around Harlem with the number slips for her father tucked in her middy-blouse pocket, she is, at the same time, vulnerable, innocent, a dreamer . . . The novel's greatest achievement lies in the strong sense of black life that it conveys: the vitality and force behind the despair. It celebrates the positive values of the black experience: the tenderness and love that often underlie the abrasive surface of relationships . . . the humour that has long been an important part of the black survival kit, and the heroism of ordinary folk . . . A most important novel' Paule Marshall, New York Times Book Review
About the author
Louise Meriwether is an American novelist, essayist, journalist, and activist. In 1970, she published her first and critically acclaimed book,
Daddy Was a Number Runner (with an introduction by James Baldwin), using autobiographical elements about growing up in Harlem during the Depression and in the era after the Harlem Renaissance. She has since written short stories that have appeared in
Antioch Review and
Negro Digest, as well as biographies for children about historically important African Americans, including Robert Smalls, Daniel Hale Williams, and Rosa Parks. Meriwether has also taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Houston.
Summary
A compelling coming-of-age story set in 1930s Harlem, Daddy was a Number Runner is a seminal text in the African-American canon of literature.
Foreword
A compelling coming-of-age story set in 1930s Harlem, Daddy was a Number Runner is a seminal text in the African-American canon of literature.
Additional text
Louise Meriwether has told everyone who can read or feel what it means to be a black man or woman in this country ... A considerable achievement
Report
Louise Meriwether has told everyone who can read or feel what it means to be a black man or woman in this country . . . A considerable achievement James Baldwin
