Echoes Across Time

Who Told You Who You Are?

The tradition of identity formed through rage: Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Maya Angelou, Steve Biko, Gloria Anzaldúa — writers who rejected the identity assigned to them and demanded the right to define themselves.

40 total quotes

“
One cannot live with the conscience of a Negro and be a conservative.

—Lorraine HansberryPlaywright & Activist

Post-War ERA • North America

“
You want me white, you want me foam, you want me pearl.

—Alfonsina StorniPoet & Feminist

Early Modern ERA • Latin America

“
A woman's body is her only true possession.

—Nawal El SaadawiFeminist, Writer & Physician

Post-War ERA • North Africa

“
We are oppressed because we are black.

—Steve BikoActivist

Post-War ERA • Southern Africa

“
The body is the first occupied territory.

—Diamela EltitNovelist, Essayist & Theorist

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

“
The U.S.‑Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the First.

—Gloria AnzaldúaTheorist & Writer

Late Modern ERA • North America

“
To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering.

—John MiltonEnglish Poet and Intellectual

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

“
You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies.

—Maya AngelouPoet, Memoirist & Activist

Post-War ERA • North America

“
The exploitation of a woman begins with her mother's womb.

—Mahasweta DeviWriter & Activist

Post-War ERA • South Asia

“
Cuba is a cage, but it is also my paradise and my inferno.

—Reinaldo ArenasNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

“
To be dispossessed is to be without history.

—Michelle CliffNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

“
Escribir es una forma de exorcismo, de sacar los demonios de dentro.

—Luisa ValenzuelaNovelist & Journalist

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

“
I was born disinherited... my country did not want me.

—Richard WrightNovelist & Critic

Early Modern ERA • North America

“
Our history has been stolen, our language suppressed, our culture defamed.

—Haunani-Kay TraskScholar, Poet & Activist

Late Modern ERA • Oceania

“
To be fat is to be undesirable, to be fat is to be repulsive.

—Roxane GayWriter, Editor & Critic

Digital Age ERA • North America

“
Mexico has a pyramid at its center, and it is made of skulls.

—Carlos FuentesNovelist & Diplomat

Post-War ERA • Latin America

“
Nothing is more humiliating than to see fools succeed in enterprises that we have failed in.

—Gustave FlaubertNovelist

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
The colonial encounter was a violence against the imagination.

—George LammingNovelist & Essayist

Post-War ERA • Caribbean

“
Terror made me cruel; and rage made me wild.

—Emily BrontëNovelist & Poet

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
A thousand devils are tearing at my soul.

—Endre AdyPoet & Journalist

Early Modern ERA • Eastern Europe

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