Proverbs for the People - Hardcover

Tracy Price-Thompson is a Brooklyn native, Desert Storm veteran, and the author of three novels, Black Coffee, Chocolate Sangria and A Taste of Hunnie. She has also contributed to several anthologies, including Bensonhurst: Black and Blue (S&S, 1999).

TaRessa Stovall is a Seattle native, former public relations director for Spelman College in Atlanta, and the co-author of A Love Supreme: Real-Life Stories of Black Love (Warner, 2000). TaRessa has contributed to several anthologies, written articles for USA Weekend, BET.com, Emerge and HealthQuest magazines and is a contributing author for the New York Public Library African-American Desk Reference and Staying Strong: Reclaiming the Wisdom of African-American Healing. TaRessa has been featured on Oprah! and in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Black Women On: The Light, Dark Thang.

"Proverbs are potent truths embodied in a grain of sand," says Jewell Parker Rhodes in the foreword of this delightful collection of age-old sayings enhanced and writ large by a legion of African American writers, both renowned and unknown. Gathering nearly 60 short stories that probe subjects as wide ranging as ancestry, May-December unions, and the politics of working nine to five, the editors deftly weave a tapestry of humor and truth. Each short story begins with a proverb whose origins might have come from as far away as a Senegalese village or as close as a dusty township in Georgia. Using riddlelike textures to speak the truth, sayings like "Never declare war unless you mean to do battle" illustrate "First Thing Monday Morning" (Gwynne Forster), the story of a woman constantly threatening to leave her husband until he beats her to the draw. "Back Then," by Michael P. Fuller, the reminiscence of an adolescent betrayal, carries the wisdom of an Ethiopian proverb. Each entry in this irrepressible anthology offers a contemporary tale gift-wrapped in the delectable wit of ancient lessons. Terry Glover
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