Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Selected as "'The Best of the Best' from the University Presses" Books You Should Know About" for the ALA Annual Conference, 2008
"Brilliance, courage and joy are what I knew of Toni Cade Bambara. Savoring the Salt mirrors her exhilarating intellect and the reach of her incomparable talents. Clearly, in these pages, the impact of her life and work—on family, friends, artists, students, colleagues—is as profound as it is forever." —Toni Morrison
"Toni Cade Bambara is one of the great literary figures of the late 20th century. She deserves more serious attention and sustained scrutiny. This magnificent volume is a first step toward this necessary effort!" — Cornel West
"Toni Cade Bambara was a genius of language, an artist of connectedness, a lucid, inspired artisan of human freedom. This collection in many voices, hers threaded throughout, is a gift to her memory, a continuing rediscovery of her visionary work, and an important historical document." — Adrienne Rich
"The breadth of outstanding contributors to this collection is evidence of Toni Cade Bambara's enormous influence on writers, filmmakers, scholars, and community activists. Bambara's artistry, insight, and lived example create a directive for 21st century artists: Tap into the genius within, stay rooted in local communities, and use culture as a tool for progressive social change." — Louis Massiah
"Equally as valuable as the diversity of the ages, talents, and reputations of the contributors to this volume and the diversity of Bambara's work in the text is the profundity of the ideas and the simplicity of the language reflected in Savoring the Salt." — Joyce A. Joyce, Temple University
"Many of the selections in Savoring the Salt aroused the impulse to go back and engage with the mind and the important contributions of Toni Cade Bambara. Since one of the highest purposes of critical/intellectual endeavor is to make us look again, the impulse aroused by these selections attests to the strength of the work." —Veronica Marie Gregg, Hunter College
"This is a moving tribute to a seminal figure of American literature whose work continues to resonate." —Booklist
"Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage and other African American luminaries remember the late writer and activist (Toni Cade Bambara). What emerges is a portrait of a brilliant wordsmith and tireless revolutionary who 10 years after her death, is missed, says Cleage, 'each and every day.'" —"Ms." Magazine
"This volume is a tribute to the legacy of Bambara, an appreciation of her work, and a celebration of her life and contribution to contemporary American literature and social consciousness. Editors Holmes, Bambara's former student and a successful writer, and Wall, a writer and Rutgers University English professor, assembled the voices of distinguished art and literary personalities like Amiri Baraka, Abena Busia, Sonia Sanchez, Eleanor Taylor, Audre Lorde, Rudolph Byrd, actor Ruby Dee, and many more. They all write insightfully and affectionately, as they celebrate a truly genuine writer and social activist who made no apologies for being black and female. Recommended for public and academic libraries" —Library Journal
"These carefully selected ruminations by Bambara's peers stand as a testament to her and the impact of her iconoclastic vision and style…Savoring the Salt provides fond memories of an incandescent spirit." —Filmbill
"These personal reflections, scholarly essays, poems, interviews, and photographs—many previously unpublished—pay high tribute to Bambara…(T)he volume provides a comprehensive approach to Bambara's life and work. Recommended." — Choice
The extraordinary spirit of Toni Cade Bambara lives on in Savoring the Salt, a vibrant and appreciative recollection of the work and legacy of the multi-talented, African American writer, teacher, filmmaker, and activist. Among the contributors who remember Bambara, reflect on her work, and examine its meaning today are Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Nikki Giovanni, Avery Gordon Audre Lorde, and Sonia Sanchez.
Admiring readers have kept Bambara's fiction in print since her first collection of stories, Gorilla, My Love, was published in 1972. She continued to write-and her audience and reputation continued to grow-until her untimely death in 1995. Savoring the Salt includes excerpts from her published and unpublished writings, along with interviews and photos of Bambara. The mix of poets and scholars, novelists and critics, political activists, and filmmakers represented here testifies to the ongoing importance and enduring appeal of her work.