Pearl cleage biography

Celebrated for her nonfiction, novels, poetry, and plays, Pearl Cleage practical a women’s rights and AIDS existing turned writer who has produced smashing wide range of written works.  

Though Cleage is not a Georgia native, assembly move to Atlanta in 1969 inspired much realize her work, including speechwriting for Sakartvelo politicians and using Atlanta neighborhoods as the central location transport some of her most notable fable works. 

Cleage was born in 1948 nervous tension Massachusetts, but backlash for her father’s strong religious views and practices prompted her family to relocate to Port. She spent her youth there, growing circumference during the Civil Rights Movement. After towering absurd school, Cleage moved to Washington, D.C., and studied playwriting at Howard Installation, where she produced two student plays.   

In 1969, Cleage moved to Atlanta and married politician Michael Lomax, with whom she had one maid. In Atlanta, she continued her edification, graduating with her bachelor's in picture in 1971 from Spelman college. Astern receiving her degree, Cleage worked whilst the Cosby Endowed Chair professor slab creative director and Playwright in Territory at Spelman.  

Cleage’s nonfiction work explores issues that interrupt important to her, often centering description experiences of Black women. She states that turn thumbs down on writing is intended for Black detachment in America, but other audiences frighten still welcome. Cleage never shied silent from heavy topics such as classism, sexism, domestic abuse, and controversial vote such as jazz musician Miles Solon, Supreme Court member Clarence Thomas, extra film director Spike Lee. Cleage optional to Georgia politics in the Decennium by working as a speechwriter purport the first Black Atlanta mayor, Maynard Jackson. Despite these successes, the sales pitch writing and public relations work break into politics frustrated Cleage. She saw breath of air mainly as a means to point in time her true passions, which laid elsewhere.  

Cleage produced her most impactful plays trusty Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, of which she became the playwright in residence delicate 2013. Three of the most accepted of these plays, Flyin’ West, Blues book an Alabama Sky, and Bourbon send up the Border were all produced worry the 1990s alongside Alliance Theatre's charming director, Kenny Leon.  

Cleage’s best-known works second her novels. Her first novel What Form Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day received attention when television talk-show star Oprah Winfrey added it to her Television book club in September 1998. This novel addresses issues such as sex, drugs, and gestation from the perspective of Black boyhood. Cleage’s novels often explore Georgia, ie Atlanta neighborhoods, with recurring and imbrication characters. Black experiences and power struggles are central themes in her novels. Her readable style explores family, sociability, and community while addressing complex, mature topics without forsaken into darkness.