It took me forever to read this book. I love Audre Lorde as a person and I adore every book of hers I read. I sometimes struggle with biographies but I found myself really enjoying this one. I’m glad to have learned more about her.

Gumbs is not your average biographer. I’m in awe of the way Gumbs approaches this text with questions, with curiosity— rather than just reporting on Lorde’s life. We get to assemble the archive with them, page by page. This is the kind of book that asks larger questions about life, belonging, advocacy, and truth. It’s one I will be unpacking for years to come.

It is very clear that Alexis Pauline Gumbs is passionate about her work and is incredibly knowledgeable about the subject. That being said, I struggled a bit with the structure of this. Each section centers a segment of Audre Lorde's life but contains individual stories that don't always flow in a way that made sense for me. It made entry into this book feel a bit overwhelming when I was already a little overwhelmed by the sheer length of this book. While it began to flow better for me once we moved beyond Lorde's childhood, the reading experience never fully recovered from the choppy start for me.

That being said, I think there are parts of this that I will absolutely return to. Gumbs weaves Lorde's work with her personal life with the politics and current events of her time period (and beyond). Coming at this as someone with only surface level knowledge of Lorde, I think this work is meant more for those who are already knowledgeable about Lorde's poetry and the African diaspora and the intersection of Black, queer, feminist identities.

Survival Is A Promise is an important look at Audre Lorde's life, writing, and activism. I could tell very early in the reading, Alexis Pauline Gumbs is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate. Survival Is A Promise is a great example of a book that may look intimidating by it's size (528 pages) while being incredibly engaging. I highly recommend this to people who have been meaning to learn more about Audre Lorde.

This was a beautiful and illuminating biographical project. You could feel the author's passion and deep immersion into Lorde's life.

Description

A bold, innovative biography that offers a new understanding of the life, work, and enduring impact of Audre Lorde.

We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-center walls. But even those who are inspired by Lorde’s teachings on “the creative power of difference” may be missing something fundamental about her life and work, and what they can mean for us today.

Lorde’s understanding of survival was not simply about getting through to the other side of oppression or being resilient in the face of cancer. It was about the total stakes of what it means to be in relationship with a planet in transformation. Possibly the focus on Lorde’s quotable essays, to the neglect of her complex poems, has led us to ignore her deep engagement with the natural world, the planetary dynamics of geology, meteorology, and biology. For her, ecological images are not simply metaphors but rather literal guides to how to be of earth on earth, and how to survive—to live the ethics that a Black feminist lesbian warrior poetics demands.

In Survival Is a Promise, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminates the eternal life of Lorde. Her life and work become more than a sound bite; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.

My Take:
The poetic scholarship of Gumbs is apparent. Engaging with this work, as well as Lorde's own writings, will enhance one's appreciation of Lorde's genius and her impact on the world. I would suggest this book to poets, scholars studying the African diaspora, Black History, LGBTQIA+ history, Black feminism, as well as to those who are mourning, those in recovery, and anyone interested in learning about Lorde and her legacy.

I wanted to love this. And maybe it just wasn't the right time for me to read this, but it felt so unbelievably heavy. Which isn't what I associate with Audre Lorde. So many words, so many suggestions to fill the perceived gaps in Lorde's 'public' story just left me feeling overwhelmed and tired.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a dynamic thinker and the preeminent Audre Lorde scholar in the United States (and maybe the world)! Coming on the heels of the pandemic and 30+ years since Audre Lorde's death from cancer, SURVIVAL IS A PROMISE is just what we need for future survival lessons. Thank you for the ARC!

I’ve gone done the middle with this because I didn’t finish it so seems unfair to rate it lower.

I love me some Audre Lorde but ultimately this was dragging. I was reading a lot of regurgitations of Lorde’s works and not coming across anything I didn’t already know, which made it quite boring for me to read.

I think this could be a good read for someone who wants to learn more about her before or without reading her works. Or someone who doesn’t mind reading the same things they already know.