Kiswana BrowneKiswana Browne

By Gloria NaylorBy Gloria Naylor

BIOGRAPHYNaylor, Gloria (b. 1950) is a , novelist, essayist,

screenplay writer, columnist, and educator. Gloria Naylor was born in New York City on 25 January to

Roosevelt and Alberta McAlpin Naylor, who had recently migrated northward from their native

Robinsonville, Mississippi. Having worked as cotton sharecroppers in Mississippi, her father became a

transit worker for the New York City subway system and her mother a telephone operator. Naylor, who

was a very shy child, grew up in New York City, where she lived until she graduated from high school

in 1968.

From shortly after her graduation until 1975, Naylor worked as a missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses in New York, North Carolina, and Florida. Eventually deciding that missionary life and the Jehovah's Witnesses were not for her, Naylor returned to New York City and attended college while working as a telephone operator in several different hotels. Although she studied nursing for a short time at Medgar Evers College, she soon decided to pursue a BA in English at Brooklyn College, from which she graduated in 1981. Next Naylor entered Yale University on a fellowship and received an MA in Afro-American studies there in 1983. Having published her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, in 1982, she wrote for her master's thesis at Yale what would become her second novel, Linden Hills (published 1985).

In 1983 Naylor's literary career took off mainly because of the attention she received for her first book. The Women of Brewster Place was granted the American Book Award for Best First Novel that year, and Naylor received the annual Distinguished Writer Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writers Association. In 1983 she also served as writer in residence at Cummington Community of the Arts and as a visiting lecturer at George Washington University. During the 1980s Naylor had jobs at numerous other institutions, including working as a cultural exchange lecturer in India for the United States Information Agency, and teaching at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Princeton, Boston, Brandeis, and Cornell. Naylor also received several prestigious awards, such as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1985, the 1986 Candace Award from the National Coalition of One Hundred Black Women, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988, and the 1989 Lillian Smith Award.

Since Naylor began publishing in the early 1980s, she has produced five novels: The Women of Brewster Place (1982), Linden Hills (1985), Mama Day (1988) Bailey's Cafe (1992), and The Men of Brewster Place (1998). In addition to these primary works, she has also published essays—including a column in the New York Times in 1986 and a scholarly piece, “Love and Sex in the Afro-American Novel,”which was published in the Yale Review in 1988—and has written several unproduced screenplays. Another important publication is “A Conversation”between Naylor and Toni Morrison, which appeared in the Southern Review in 1985. She edited Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers 1967 to the Present in 1995.

SummaryThe story opens from the window of the apartment of Brewster Place where Kiswana lives. Kiswana who is representative of young population of women in America. Kiswana moves from a well-to-do black family living in a middle class neighborhood, Linden Hills. Kiswana is young, and sometimes naive social activist who is in search of her identity. She wishes to find her roots and to be supportive to the immense pains and struggles of the women of Brewster Place. Despite her philanthropic nature and racial pride, she is also a fantasist.

The story takes new course when Mrs. Browne (Mother of Kiswana) appears. She is an ideal mother and a realistic women where all the fantasies of Kiswana disappears. The mother appreciates the work of Kiswana but fears that she might fall back to the familiarity of perpetual poverty living at Brewster Place.

But Kiswana is stubborn. She had lacquered her hair in the past to look like “Afro”. She had also participated in demonstration for their rights. So, she is not yet ready to accept that she might be wrong. Angrily, she calls her mother a “niger of white man” for living in Linden Hills.

Mrs. Browne persuades Melanie that revolution can be carried out from within the system. Melanie’s dreams are not rooted in reality; they are as empty as air. She tells Melanie about her ancestors how they came from other parts of the world; struggled and survived in the unknown land. When Melanie and Wilson were born she had promised that she would prepare them to face the world on its own terms-whatever they were or however they looked.

they quarrel over Kiswana's choice of neighborhood and over her decision to leave school. Kiswana thinks that she is nothing like her mother, but when her mother's temper flares Kiswana has to admit that she admires her mother and that they are more alike that she had realized. Before leaving, she secretly gives Kiswana enough money to have a phone line installed.

INTERPRETATION Kiswana Browne has intentionally sacrificed her birth given middle class status wishing to connect to the inner city black community she has overlooked as class barrier, in fact she has gone beyond that, and has actually removedthe barrier. Instead of simply accepting what common ground she already had with the community, she has created even more commanility with Brewster place. This is commendable feature, but the downside of this is the barrier which now divides Kiswana and the rest of her family

Before the meeting with her mother which is discribed in the book,Kiswana is actually rather annoyed by her mother presence,and believes Mrs Browne to be another unknowing victim of the white government.By taking such an active stance against the upper and middle class Kiswana denies herself the ability to make a difference for her beloved lower class people until ,of course, Mrs Browne shows her what kind of powershe can have as a middle class citizen

It should of course be recognized that kiswana struggle is not only class relatedbut race related. she believes that true black people have been forced into lower class lives by moving into Brewster place, then she can connect with her race. One should note that the term race in the sense, is reffering to the cultural construct supposedly believed to exist

by the general public, However even if a race is a false concept, African-Americans do have a shared history and heritage, and Kiswana wishes to embrace such roots. Judging from the way kiswana seems to havelittle conflict with the her neighbours ,it seems as though she fits in with them. she has made it so that she belongs with what she considers to be her people.