Marita bonner biography template

Occomy, ; children: William, Jr. Marita Bonner was among the foremost artists, educators, and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. She began her writing career as a student at Brookline High School where her contributions to the student magazine drew the attention of a faculty member who encouraged her to enroll at Radcliffe. There she majored in English and comparative literature and studied creative writing with the celebrated Professor Charles "Copey" Copeland.

A lifelong student of music and German language and literature, Bonner received a B. She went on to publish a host of plays, essays, reviews, and short fiction, some of which received long-overdue publication in the prize-winning collection, Frye Street and Environsedited by Bonner's daughter with Joyce Flynn. While residing in Boston, Washington D.

She received honorable mention in the Opportunity Awards for her short story"The Hands". Bonner's heightened awareness of her role as a black woman artist surfaces in "On Being Young. Bonner's drama and short stories are marked by a diverse range of literary devices and strategies. Experimentally and thematically expansive, her fiction explores on one level the psychological states of black American women enduring the yoke of racial, sexual, and class oppression.

On another level, her short fiction—commonly set in Chicago in the s and s—treats the experiences of the historically disenfranchised black community engaged with the racist American society at large.

Marita bonner biography template

Her best-known play, The Purple Floweris a vexing allegorical portrayal of racism in America. In several of her stories, Bonner meticulously examines the problems of class and complexion within the black community; here, she is a thematic associate of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen. Also evident in Bonner's work is her penetrating vision of the human condition, manifested through her symbolic thoroughfare, Frye Street.

The quilt, by now a familiar icon of black women's writing, most faithfully symbolizes the colorful and complex body of Bonner's works. The quilt epitomizes as well her snugly interwoven place in the black women's writing tradition. She excelled in German and Musicand was a very talented pianist. Inshe graduated from Brookline High School and in enrolled in Radcliffe Collegecommuting to campus because many African-American students were denied dormitory accommodation.

In college, she majored in English and Comparative Literaturewhile continuing to study German and musical composition. At Radcliffe, African-American students were not permitted to board, and many either lived in houses off-campus set aside for black students, or commuted, as Bonner did. Bonner was an accomplished student at Radcliffe, founding the Radcliffe chapter of Delta Sigma Thetaa black sorority, and participating in many musical clubs she twice won the Radcliffe song competition.

She was also accepted to a competitive marita bonner biography template class that was open to 16 students, where her professor, Charles Townsend Copelandencouraged her not to be "bitter" when writing, a descriptor often used for authors of color. After finishing her schooling in[ 3 ] she continued to teach at Bluefield Colored Institute in West Virginia.

While in Washington, Bonner became closely associated with poet, playwright and composer Georgia Douglas Johnson. Johnson's "S Street salon" was an important meeting place for many of the writers and artists involved in the New Negro Renaissance. While living in Washington D. They married and moved to Chicagowhere Bonner's writing career took off.

After marrying Occomy, she began to write under her married name. AfterBonner gave up publishing her works and devoted her time to her family, including three children. Bonner died on December 7,from smoke-inhalation complications at a hospital after her apartment caught fire. Throughout her life, Bonner wrote many short stories, essays and plays, and was a frequent contributor to The Crisis the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Opportunity official publication of the National Urban League between and Her short stories explored a multicultural universe filled with people drawn by the promises of urban life.

Many of Bonner's later works, such as Light in Dark Placesdealt with poverty, poor housing, and color discrimination in the black communities, and shows the influence that the urban environment has on black communities. Bonner is one of the many frequently unrecognized black female writers of the Harlem Renaissance who resisted the universalizing, essentialist tendencies by focusing on atypical women rather than on an archetypal man, such as the New Negro," which can be seen in her earliest works.

Cliff-Pellow, Arlene. Jessie Carney Smith, Detroit: Gale, l Dandridge, Rita B. New York: GK Hall, Dillon, Kim J. William L. Andrews, et. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search. Top of Page. Opportunity magazine, Feb. The black folks down in the valley of life discover that only blood will buy them the Flower of Life up on the hill that the white devils hold.