--- product_id: 221642 title: "Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches" price: "NZ$43" currency: NZD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/221642-sister-outsider-essays-and-speeches store_origin: NZ region: New Zealand --- # 4.8/5 from 2,153 reviews Top #2 LGBTQ+ Studies 15 essays & speeches Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches **Price:** NZ$43 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 🔥 Own the voice that shaped generations — Sister Outsider is your essential call to action! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - **How much does it cost?** NZ$43 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/221642-sister-outsider-essays-and-speeches) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **A Voice for Change & Courage:** Unflinching explorations of sexism, racism, homophobia, and class that challenge and inspire social action. - • **Timeless Intersectional Wisdom:** Dive into Audre Lorde’s fearless essays on race, gender, and identity that remain powerfully relevant decades later. - • **A Must-Have for Thought Leaders:** Perfect for scholars, activists, and professionals seeking profound psychological and cultural insight. - • **Critically Acclaimed & Celebrated:** Ranked top #2 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies and praised by The New York Times for intellectual rigor and emotional depth. - • **Commemorative Edition with New Foreword:** Includes fresh insights from Cheryl Clarke, connecting Lorde’s legacy to today’s social justice movements. ## Overview Sister Outsider is a landmark collection of 15 essays and speeches by Audre Lorde, a pioneering Black lesbian feminist poet and activist. This used book in good condition offers incisive critiques of sexism, racism, homophobia, and class, blending lyrical prose with unrelenting truth. Celebrated for its intellectual depth and emotional power, it ranks #2 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies and holds a 4.8-star rating from over 2,000 readers. The commemorative edition features a new foreword by scholar Cheryl Clarke, reaffirming Lorde’s enduring influence on social justice and feminist theory. ## Description Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. “[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”— The New York Times In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ” Review: Poetry and Politics - Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, perhaps her most seminal work, contains essays and speeches recorded at the height of her powers. As a Black Lesbian feminist poet, mother, and person in a biracial relationship, she had a lot to say about a lot of things. Her honesty and eloquence were unparalleled. Her poetry was fearless. She served as a spokesperson on behalf of oppressed people, and was much beloved—and often feared. She held herself up to the same high standards of scrutiny that she did her contemporaries. Her untimely death to breast cancer (which she chronicled in her book «Cancel Journals ») created torrential grief in her communities and far beyond. A street near Hunter college in New York City now bears her name. Sister Outsider, however, is not an easy book to read. Aside from being intellectually brilliant and unassailable in terms of the airtight arguments Lorde presents, Sister Outsider is somewhat harsh and relentless. It is easier read piecemeal in small portions because it is presented at such a pitch that the reader can quickly be overwhelmed. Of course, her essay « Poetry is Not a Luxury » first published in 1977 in Chrysalis, despite its seriousness, is a joy to read. It is surprisingly fresh and completely relevant. This could be one of those timeless essays that will never become passé. As art is always on the chopping block, its efficacy perpetually debated, it would be a great text to memorize and quote at will when needed. It is often needed. Another highlight for me in this book is her « Open Letter to Mary Daly, » criticizing the radical feminist’s book, Gyn/Ecology for its treatment of female circumcision, which did not recognize or consult the black feminist perspective. This microaggressive erasure was further aggravated by the fact that Daly never replied to Lorde’s letter voicing her objections, before it even became an open letter. Despite the letter’s friendly tone and patina of graciousness, Lorde basically « tore Daly a new one. » The classic interview between Audre and her good friend Adrienne Rich is a total gem. Their repartee rings authentic and neither of them skirt around uncomfortable issues, but rather face them head on in a noncombatant, pacific manner. Equally brilliant are the essays on the erotic in poetry, citing the creation of poetry as a primal force; and « The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, » of which title speaks for itself. The final essay involves the US invasion of Grenada, the birthplace and home of Audrey Lord’s mother. This essay is so moving probably because of personal connection to it. However, her analysis of historical precedents and her willingness to expose the rotten teeth of the US technomilitary complex as it relates to a history rife with racist, is stunningly courageous. In this last essay, she never misses a beat, connecting the dots between the US’s paternalistic involvement (and financial entanglements) in South America and its island possessions. Grenada, prior to the invasion of American and British forces, was an independent entity, governed by an all black leadership. The carnage left behind after said invasion was brutal, unnecessary and totally racist. And that’s what makes Audre Lorde’s work, so hard to take at times because of its blatant and unrelenting insistence on telling the truth, a blueprint for students of the peace and justice movement, scholars, and revolutionaries to this day. Review: Painful Light of Truth - This is much more than a book, a collection of writings. It's an experience more like surviving a traumatic event, seeing a deep and distressing movie or having a long and difficult talk with someone who has been oppressed from all sides. It accomplishes that which no other book I have ever read has done. Aside from the profound personal impact it has had on me, it details a horror story of a life lived with incomparable insight into humanity as well as with courage which faces that horror every day. I bought and read the book based on the other reviews above. They are all correct, but the praise this book deserves is understated. It may well be the greatest book of psychological insight and advice ever written. Only Dostoevsky's works compare. Lorde defies all the labels she and others use to describe her. This is the most human of all books because it stares the weaknesses we all share right in the face and finds ways to fight if not conquer them as well as pointing out strategies that are counterproductive. Lorde allows the reader to get inside her skin like no other writer, and for the first time ever, made me feel the anger, terror, fear, helplessness I have sensed in many if not all black people. And yet her greatest criticisms are not of whites, but especially of her black sisters and then her brothers. She clearly does not set herself apart because she knows she has had "my boot on a sister's face". Richard Adams wrote a story called "The Hole in the Sky". Most people never see it, but this book describes best of all what makes up that hole and what it feels like to see it. ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #10,183 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #2 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies #15 in Feminist Theory (Books) #18 in African American Demographic Studies (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,153 Reviews | ## Images ![Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71LymtJyjKL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Poetry and Politics *by J***E on September 25, 2023* Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, perhaps her most seminal work, contains essays and speeches recorded at the height of her powers. As a Black Lesbian feminist poet, mother, and person in a biracial relationship, she had a lot to say about a lot of things. Her honesty and eloquence were unparalleled. Her poetry was fearless. She served as a spokesperson on behalf of oppressed people, and was much beloved—and often feared. She held herself up to the same high standards of scrutiny that she did her contemporaries. Her untimely death to breast cancer (which she chronicled in her book «Cancel Journals ») created torrential grief in her communities and far beyond. A street near Hunter college in New York City now bears her name. Sister Outsider, however, is not an easy book to read. Aside from being intellectually brilliant and unassailable in terms of the airtight arguments Lorde presents, Sister Outsider is somewhat harsh and relentless. It is easier read piecemeal in small portions because it is presented at such a pitch that the reader can quickly be overwhelmed. Of course, her essay « Poetry is Not a Luxury » first published in 1977 in Chrysalis, despite its seriousness, is a joy to read. It is surprisingly fresh and completely relevant. This could be one of those timeless essays that will never become passé. As art is always on the chopping block, its efficacy perpetually debated, it would be a great text to memorize and quote at will when needed. It is often needed. Another highlight for me in this book is her « Open Letter to Mary Daly, » criticizing the radical feminist’s book, Gyn/Ecology for its treatment of female circumcision, which did not recognize or consult the black feminist perspective. This microaggressive erasure was further aggravated by the fact that Daly never replied to Lorde’s letter voicing her objections, before it even became an open letter. Despite the letter’s friendly tone and patina of graciousness, Lorde basically « tore Daly a new one. » The classic interview between Audre and her good friend Adrienne Rich is a total gem. Their repartee rings authentic and neither of them skirt around uncomfortable issues, but rather face them head on in a noncombatant, pacific manner. Equally brilliant are the essays on the erotic in poetry, citing the creation of poetry as a primal force; and « The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, » of which title speaks for itself. The final essay involves the US invasion of Grenada, the birthplace and home of Audrey Lord’s mother. This essay is so moving probably because of personal connection to it. However, her analysis of historical precedents and her willingness to expose the rotten teeth of the US technomilitary complex as it relates to a history rife with racist, is stunningly courageous. In this last essay, she never misses a beat, connecting the dots between the US’s paternalistic involvement (and financial entanglements) in South America and its island possessions. Grenada, prior to the invasion of American and British forces, was an independent entity, governed by an all black leadership. The carnage left behind after said invasion was brutal, unnecessary and totally racist. And that’s what makes Audre Lorde’s work, so hard to take at times because of its blatant and unrelenting insistence on telling the truth, a blueprint for students of the peace and justice movement, scholars, and revolutionaries to this day. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Painful Light of Truth *by A***E on March 25, 2010* This is much more than a book, a collection of writings. It's an experience more like surviving a traumatic event, seeing a deep and distressing movie or having a long and difficult talk with someone who has been oppressed from all sides. It accomplishes that which no other book I have ever read has done. Aside from the profound personal impact it has had on me, it details a horror story of a life lived with incomparable insight into humanity as well as with courage which faces that horror every day. I bought and read the book based on the other reviews above. They are all correct, but the praise this book deserves is understated. It may well be the greatest book of psychological insight and advice ever written. Only Dostoevsky's works compare. Lorde defies all the labels she and others use to describe her. This is the most human of all books because it stares the weaknesses we all share right in the face and finds ways to fight if not conquer them as well as pointing out strategies that are counterproductive. Lorde allows the reader to get inside her skin like no other writer, and for the first time ever, made me feel the anger, terror, fear, helplessness I have sensed in many if not all black people. And yet her greatest criticisms are not of whites, but especially of her black sisters and then her brothers. She clearly does not set herself apart because she knows she has had "my boot on a sister's face". Richard Adams wrote a story called "The Hole in the Sky". Most people never see it, but this book describes best of all what makes up that hole and what it feels like to see it. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ESSENTIAL -- Then and now. *by D***N on August 17, 2020* Audre Lorde was an extrordinary poet and essayist, who looked deeply into both herself and society. Because she was black, lesbian, and a woman, she gives us a lens – both ferocious and loving – to see how we see the Other. Her insight and honesty are a challenge to anyone reading this book. For example, she knows from herself and her experience, how anger that originates in oppression and brutality, can be transmuted into the nastiness that black women may show for each other. Likewise, as a mother of a boy, she anatomizes the "letting go" that any parent must do as as a child grows, along with the particular challenges of a lesbian woman in relation to a male child. Most powerful are the last two essays. "Eye to Eye" is an extended meditation on how we see each other, but through the eyes of a black woman, seeing first of all other black women. Although most of the collection is in this vein, the last essay is a no-holds-barred treatment of American imperialism, as she revisits Grenada, her mother's birthplace, in the aftermath of the American invasion in 1983. Lorde died of cancer in 1992. She was our Sister Outsider then, was a touchstone for Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and is today for activists such as Angela Davis and Valarie Kaur. ## Frequently Bought Together - Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - All About Love: New Visions --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.nz/products/221642-sister-outsider-essays-and-speeches](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/221642-sister-outsider-essays-and-speeches) --- *Product available on Desertcart New Zealand* *Store origin: NZ* *Last updated: 2026-09-05*