Literary Significance and Reception
"The praisong is performed by a group of dancing natives on the tiny island of Carriacou, and how Avey Johnson comes to be there...is a story both convincing and eerily dreamlike" Anne Tyler, The New York Herald
"Praisesong is not only about alienation and reaffirmation, but also about the role and the importance of Black women as transmitters and preservers of culture, identity, and heritage." Thelma Ravell-Pinto, Journal of Black Studies, 1987
"It doesn't take a reader long to figure out where Paule Marshall is headed in her ultimately successful new novel, Praisesong for the Widow. Christopher Lee, The New York Times, 1983
Read more about this topic: Praisesong For The Widow
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or reception:
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)