Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter

Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter

by Ntozake Shange
Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter

Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter

by Ntozake Shange

Paperback(First Edition)

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Overview

From the award-winning author of the choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf comes Ntozake Shange's extraordinary novel Liliane, about a woman learning to be who she really is.

"A daring portrait of a black woman artist re-creating herself out of social and psychological chaos, the fragmentation that haunts our time, our nation. Ourselves."-Los Angeles Times

Through the polyphonic voices of Liliane Lincoln's childhood friends, lovers, and conversations with her psychoanalyst, Ntozake Shange weaves the life of a remarkable young woman. Liliane Lincoln is an artist who exposes what she knows of herself to the world through her bold and colorful artwork. Gradually, however, Liliane realizes that in order to survive, she must come to terms with what she has kept hidden even from herself.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312644109
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 10/11/2011
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Ntozake Shange (1948-2018) was a renowned playwright, poet, and novelist. Her works include the Tony Award-nominated and Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, as well as Some Sing, Some Cry (written with her sister Ifa Bayeza), Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo and Liliane.

Among her honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and a Pushcart Prize. She was a graduate of Barnard and recipient of a Masters in American Studies from University of Southern California.

Reading Group Guide

Ntozake Shange's highly acclaimed plays, poetry, and fiction have established her as a major figure in contemporary American literature. Her latest novel, Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter, stems partly from her own segregated childhood in St. Louis, partly from the double-edged realization that, in her words, "we knew we came from something, somewhere, and had watched as 'The Other' removed us from ourselves, our lands, our language, and each other, at will or on a whim. Nevertheless . . . the intermingling of people of color on these shores revitalized an African-American community that was numbed by the violence of the sheer task of living here."

Liliane tells the story of a young black woman who is defined by her own creative impulses. Liliane exposes most of what she knows of herself through her works of art. What she does not know -- that which is buried, the riches of the unconscious -- surfaces during her psychoanalysis, Liliane's story, however, does not unfold only from her own recollections. The many voices of her childhood friends and lovers combine to complete a portrait of this remarkable artist.

By interweaving the voices of Liliane and her analyst with monologues from the friends and lovers who have formed the geography of her experience, the events of a young girl's life become the landscape of her future. This guide is designed to help you navigate that landscape and to piece together the brilliant and courageous story of Liliane.

Discussion Questions:
1. The author has said, "Liliane's story could never be told omnisciently, from on high," and the novel is told from several different points of view, instead of a traditional, linear narrative. What effect does this multi-voiced storytelling have on the reader's understanding of Liliane? How does Liliane's community of voices reflect the events of Liliane's life, or the lives of African-Americans?

2. What is the significance of Shange's subtitle: "Resurrection of the Daughter?"

3. Ntozake Shange has said that in writing Liliane, she "wanted to create a character who was free to travel, open to new ideas, and committed to bringing something to the world that had never existed before: her art." What might the act of artistic creation symbolize to Liliane? What various kinds of art function in the narrative?

4. The novel is punctuated by Liliane's sessions with her psychoanalyst. What effect do these rhythmic punctuations/ interruptions have on the narrative as a whole?

5. Much of the novel, and Liliane's own artwork, concentrates on female sexuality. How does Liliane's sexual identity change through the course of the book? How does it mirror the way she comes to terms with her mother's sexuality?

6. On page 164, Liliane's friend Bernadette says of Liliane: "I always figured she was some other kinda white girl. "What does this statement signify about Liliane's behavior? How do Bernadette's feelings change during the course of the racial violence they experience together? What is "some other kinda white girl?"

7. The chapters in Liliane have detailed titles ranging from "I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?" to "'Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby' or Wouldn't It Be Great If the Lead Singer of The Crests Wasn't a White Boy and I Could Be My Mother?" What do these chapter titles have to do with the individual chapters? The work as a whole? What role do music and musical artists play in these titles?

8. Discuss the nature of Liliane's character. Is she exceptional? Ordinary? Purely fictional? Is she sympathetic? Reliable? How do Liliane's experiences compare to those of the "ordinary" African-American woman? How does being an artist shape and define Liliane's character?

9. The book brings together the voices of people of various ethnic backgrounds: Creole, Latino, French, Portuguese, and African. Liliane herself wants to master every language ever spoken by slaves. What is the effect of this bending of languages? What does it mean that Liliane finds herself "incomplete" in English, her first language?

About the Author:
Ntozake Shange (EN-toe-zok-ee SHON-gay) was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and later moved to St. Louis, where her family counted Miles Davis, Ike and Tina Turner, Dizzy Gillespie, and W.E.B. DuBois among their friends. During her teenage years, Shange was among the first to integrate the schools of St. Louis. She went on to graduate from Barnard College and the University of Southern California, and has taught and lectured at schools and universities across the county. She now lives in Philadelphia.
    Shange is the author of the plays for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, which won an Obie award and a Tony award nomination, and Mother Courage and Her Children, which also won an Obie award; four volumes of poetry; and two other novels, Betsey Brown and Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, both reprinted by Picador USA.

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