Michele Wallace's groundbreaking black feminist intervention into the maelstrom of cultural criticism was widely revered when it was first published in 1990. Now, in this new edition, she updates and extends the work for new and revisiting audiences. The early parts of the book remain untouched - a consideration of the work of her mother, the artist Faith Ringgold; recollections of her early life in Harlem; and an account of her development as a writer in the 1970s. But to the examination of the legacy of black artists - among them Zora Neale Hurston, Spike Lee and Michael Jackson - are added many previously unpublished interviews and profiles: of Richard Pryor, Nona Hendryx, Grace Jones, Iman, Alvin Ailey and others. Wallace has also added a new preface which repositions the text in a contemporary context. With its combination of journalistic flair and scholarly rigor, and its insistence on posing the tough questions which black feminist theory must address, Invisibility Blues remains a landmark in cultural studies and a fundamental document in the history of black feminism.

Author Biography

Michele Wallace, who completed her Ph.D. in Cinema Studies at New York University in 1999, is Professor of English at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center. A new edition of her seminal Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman is forthcoming from Verso in 2005.