Maud Martha (Faber Editions) by Gwendolyn Brooks

What, what, am I to do with all of this life? Maud Martha Brown is a little girl growing up on the South Side of 1940s Chicago.

 Amidst the crumbling taverns and overgrown yards, she dreams: of New York, romance, her future. She admires dandelions, learns to drink coffee, falls in love, decorates her kitchenette, visits the Jungly Hovel, guts a chicken, buys hats, gives birth. But her lighter-skinned husband has dreams too: of the Foxy Cats Club, other women, war. And the 'scraps of baffled hate' - a certain word from a saleswoman; that visit to the cinema; the cruelty of a department store Santa Claus- are always there .

Written in 1953 but never published in Britain, Maud Martha is a poetic collage of happenings that forms an extraordinary portrait of an ordinary life: one lived with wisdom, humour, protest, rage, dignity, and joy.

Author: Gwendolyn Brooks

Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers

Published on 5 May 2022 by FABER & FABER in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Faber Editions' series.

Paperback / softback | 144 pages
130 x 197 x 14 | 136g