Half in Shadow
The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
Shanna Greene Benjamin
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 04/2021
Pages: 280
Subject: Biography and Autobiography, Social Science
Print ISBN: 9781469662534
eBook ISBN: 9781469661896
DESCRIPTION
Nellie Y. McKay (1930–2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary
American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known
for coediting the canon-making Norton Anthology of African
American Literature with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped
secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had
been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's
life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing,
new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who
knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past?
Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the
professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and
successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy.
Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a
Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the
white-dominated space of the American English department. Using
extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings
together McKay's private life and public work to expand how we
think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in
American culture.