Introduction


Toni Cade Bambara
Although her contemporaries Toni Morrison and Alice Walker may have gained more acclaim and fame, Toni Cade Bambara ranks with them in terms of influencing subsequent generations of writers. Bambara, like Walker and Morrison, helped define (and redefine) the voice of African-American women. Bambara helped assert that voice by narrating her tales from a first-person point of view. This intimate approach to storytelling invited audiences to share in her characters’ struggles and joys. Bambara also set herself apart with her positive tone, exploring the African-American female psyche through growth and happiness. Her contributions to African-American literature have earned Bambara the reputation of a pioneer.

Essential Facts

  1. Education was as much a part of Bambara’s career as her writing. She taught courses at Rutgers University and Spellman College.
  2. In addition to her fiction writing, Bambara dabbled in other art forms as well. She completed several scripts and contributed to a documentary about W. E. B. Du Bois.
  3. Bambara died of colon cancer on December 9, 1995.
  4. One of Bambara’s most important works, Those Bones Are Not My Child , was published posthumously. This unfinished account of the child murders that plagued Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s and early 1980s was completed based on Bambara’s extensive notes.
  5. Toni Morrison also published a posthumous collection of Bambara’s nonfiction under the title Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions.