NEWS

Pearl Cleage to give guide to 'revolutionary romance'

CHAPEL HILL -- "The purpose of my writing, often, is to expose the point where racism and sexism meet," wrote Atlanta author Pearl Cleage in her second essay collection, "Deals with the Devil and other Reasons to Riot."

Tuesday (March 4), the prolific writer of plays, novels and essays will give the annual Sonja Haynes Stone Memorial Lecture at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Love Among the Ruins: A Reader's Guide to Revolutionary Romance" is Cleage's title for the free public lecture at 7 p.m. in 100 Hamilton Hall.

Cleage (pronounced "kleg") will explore contemporary black women's fiction, including her own, and offer new definitions and possibilities for readers and writers, said Jocelyn Womack, program director for UNC's Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black History and Culture.

Each year the center presents the lecture honoring its namesake, the late Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone, a UNC faculty member and center advocate. The center chooses speakers thought to embody Stone's ideals. They have included actress Alfre Woodard, activist Angela Davis and poet Sonia Sanchez.

"Cleage was an important advocate for Southern and South African independence movements," said center director Dr. Joseph Jordan, a UNC professor of African and Afro-American studies. "She helped to lay the groundwork for the modern black women's movement for recognition, voice and empowerment."

Cleage reached national prominence in fall 1998, when Oprah Winfrey chose her first novel, "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" (Avon Books, 1997), for the talk show host's book club. The book spent nine weeks on The New York Times' bestseller list. Cleage's second novel, "I Wish I Had a Red Dress" (Morrow/Avon, 2001), made Essence magazine's list of best sellers for the year.

"She weaves social justice into her fiction," Womack said. "She portrays brave black women overcoming obstacles."

Her third novel, "Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do," is due in August.

Previously, Cleage was, at different times, a columnist for the Atlanta Tribune, communications director for the City of Atlanta, press secretary for former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, and a playwriting teacher at Spellman College, her alma mater.

Cleage's plays have been produced at venues across the country, including The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. ("Flyin' West") and, currently, Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater ("Bourbon at the Border"). "Blues for an Alabama Sky," her second of three plays commissioned and premiered in Atlanta's Alliance Theatre the 1990s, brought this assessment from a Washington Post reviewer: "Cleage has a real talent for storytelling. A boisterous, hard-to-resist energy …"

Ballantine published "Deals with the Devil" in 1993, following Cleage's self-published essay collection "Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman's Guide to Truth" in 1991. Her articles have appeared in magazines including The New York Times Book Review, Essence and Ms.

Currently, Cleage told Womack, "I am at work on another novel, as yet untitled, set in Atlanta and asking the question, what would happen if older women really told younger women what we know?"

For more information, call the center, 962-9001.

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Center contact: Jocelyn Womack, 962-9001, jocelyn_womack@unc.edu.
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu