Showing results by author "Ann Petry" in All Categories

The classic urban tale of a young Black woman's struggle to raise her son alone amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of 1940s Harlem. 

A young Black girl watches as her aunt’s multiple suitors disrupt her family’s privacy. The same girl, now on the cusp of adulthood, shares her family’s growing fears that her father has disappeared. Acclaimed author Ann Petry penned these and the other unforgettable narratives in Miss Muriel and Other Stories more than 70 years ago, yet in them, contemporary listeners recognize characters who exist today and dilemmas that recur again and again.

On a snowy Christmas Eve in an unnamed American city, the archangel Michael wanders the streets. He is alone and hungry, his clothes tattered, and when he sees his face reflected in a store window, it is that of a young African American boy. Who will offer him food and shelter and who will turn him away? And when he becomes a blonde, freckle-faced child, is his fate different?

Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar due to the lack of better opportunities for an African-American man in a staid mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link’s life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. Drinking in a bar together after the incident, “Camilo” discovers that her rescuer is African American and he learns that she is white. Unbeknownst to him, “Camilo” is a wealthy married woman who has crossed the town’s racial divide to relieve the tedium of her life. 

Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad was praised by the New Yorker as “an evocative portrait,” and by the Chicago Tribune as “superb.” It is a gripping and accessible portrait of the heroic woman who guided more than 300 slaves to freedom and who is expected to be the face of the new $20 bill. Harriet Tubman was born a slave and dreamed of being free. She was willing to risk everything - including her own life - to see that dream come true. After her daring escape, Harriet became a conductor on the secret Underground Railroad.

Johnnie Roane returns from four years of military service in World War II to his wife, Glory. They had been married just a year when he left Lennox, Connecticut, where both their families live and work. In his taxi ride home, Johnnie receives foreboding hints that all has not been well in his absence. Eager to mend his fraying marriage, Johnnie attempts to cajole Glory to recommit to their life together. But something sinister has taken place during the intervening years - an infidelity that has not gone unnoticed in the superficially placid New England town. 

New York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub - a life that she can be proud of. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again; she has faith in the American dream. But in her struggle to earn money and raise her son amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn. 

Ein junger Mann kehrt aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zurück in seine Heimatstadt an der Ostküste der USA. Alles ist ihm seltsam fremd - die Frau, das Elternhaus, die Mutter. Er versucht, zurück zur Normalität zu finden, doch seine Frau sieht durch seine Rückkehr in erster Linie ihre neu gewonnene Freiheit in Gefahr. Gewalt, Missgunst, Klatsch und Untreue bestimmen daraufhin nicht nur die Beziehung des Paares, sondern die gesamte Dynamik des Ortes.

Sapphire ( Push), Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts ( Harlem Is Nowhere), and actress Sonia Manzano ( The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano) discuss the gritty, emotional 1946 classic set in Harlem. Actress Roslyn Ruff ( The Piano Lesson; The Help) will read an excerpt.

New York, vierziger Jahre. Lutie Johnson zieht mit ihrem Sohn in eine schäbige Mietwohnung in Harlem. Ein übergriffiger Hausmeister, ein Bordell im Erdgeschoss und flüchtige Schatten, die die dunklen Flure bevölkern. Luties Leben wird bestimmt von täglichen Kämpfen. Gegen die Zweifel, ob sie ihrem Sohn eine gute Mutter sein kann, gegen Armut und Rassismus, gegen die Eintönigkeit des Alltags und die Perspektivlosigkeit ihrer Lage. Doch Lutie ist entschlossen, den Sprung in ein besseres Leben zu schaffen.

It's Saturday, past midnight, and thick fog rolls in from the river like smoke. Link Williams is standing on the dock when he hears quick footsteps approaching and the gasp of a woman too terrified to scream. After chasing off her pursuer, he takes the woman to a nearby bar to calm her nerves, and as they enter, it's as if the oxygen has left the room: they, and the other patrons, see in the dim light that he's Black and she's white.