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Bessie's Resurrection gives voice to Richard Wright's fictional character Bessie Mears from his novel Native Son (1940). These poems offer Bessie room to articulate her experiences as an African American woman and how she suffers in her unenviable position, powerless and unseen. Here, Bessie's fictive character is self actualized by two historical African American trailblazers: Bessie Coleman and Bessie Smith who lived during the same time period when Bessie's story takes place.

Bessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies and made her a star. Smith's life was notoriously difficult. As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.