Writing
Anne Moody's acclaimed autobiography, her collection of short fiction, and other work
“S]he grew up with every disadvantage. But, perhaps because her character represents an unusual confluence of historical and psychological currents, she grew into that rarest of beings — a forceful militant outraged but not crippled by the circumstances that produced her.”
On This Page
Locate Anne Moody's Work
Selected Reviews of Coming of Age in Mississippi & Mr. Death: Four Stories
Other Writing on Black Power, Black Literature, and Representations of Death in Children's Literature
Locate Anne Moody's Work
There is also an award-winning audio version of Coming of Age in Mississippi, read by actress Lisa Reneé Pitts.
In 1980, Anne Moody narrated two of the stories from Mr. Death for Caedmon Audio, and those recordings are still available in some libraries.
Selected Reviews
Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968)
Mr. Death: Four Stories (1975)
Other Work by Anne Moody
Thoughts on Black Power and Black Writing in 1969
Excerpted from the liner notes of Anne Moody Reads Her Mr. Death & Bobo (1980, Caedmon), drawn from Moody's notes to her publisher both before and after publication of Mr. Death: Four Stories (1975)
Wilkinson County, MS ©2018 Shelby Driskill
"The stories... relate to death in one form or another. In each story, one or more characters are created with whom the child [reader] becomes deeply involved and with whom he closely identifies. Death then either happens to, or in some intimate way, affects the main characters in each story, thereby arousing certain emotions in the young reader. Though each story is written in such a way that the deaths in it are very disturbing to the child, there will be no attempt on my part to resolve or mitigate these disturbing emotions or even hint at solutions as to how they should be handled. The way I plan to do these stories, the child is forced, in each case, to cope with and resolve his emotions for himself. By forcing the young reader to experience death and to figure out for himself what he might have done in the situation, I hope that if, or when, he is confronted in real life with death that affects him personally, he would already have had some previous encounter -- even though fictional in nature -- with those emotions which are evoked by death."
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