'The Gilda Stories are both classic and timely. Her take on queerness, community, and the vampire legend is as radical and relevant as ever.'-Michael Nava, author of The City of Palaces 'In sensuous prose, Jewelle Gomez uses the vampire story as a vehicle for a re-telling of American history in which the disenfranchised finally get their say. Brilliant!'-Joan Steinau Lester, author of Black, White, Other Her resilience is a testament to black queer women’s love, power, and creativity. 'Jewelle's big-hearted novel pulls old rhythms out of the earth, the beauty shops and living rooms of black lesbian herstory, expressed by the dazzling vampire Gilda. The Gilda Stories was the recipient of two Lambda Literary Awards, and was adapted for the stage by the Urban Bush Women theater company in thirteen United States cities.Īlexis Pauline Gumbs was named one of UTNE Reader's 50 Visionaries Transforming the World, a Reproductive Reality Check Shero, a Black Woman Rising nominee, and was awarded one of the first-ever 'Too Sexy for 501c3' trophies. Jewelle Gomez is a writer, activist, and the author of many books including Forty-Three Septembers, Don't Explain, The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears, and Oral Tradition. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story. After being initiated into eternal life as one who 'shares the blood' by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. This is a book to give to those you want most to find their own strength.'-Dorothy Allison

'Jewelle Gomez sees right into the heart. 'The Gilda Stories is groundbreaking not just for the wild lives it portrays, but for how it portrays them-communally, unapologetically, roaming fiercely over space and time.'-Emma Donoghue, author of Room

The gilda stories