Memory of Kin

Critic, essayist, and anthologist Mary Helen Washington has chosen as the theme of her newest collection "the family as a living mystery." She selected nineteen stories and twelve poems by some of this century's leading black authors that oblige the reader to observe the complexities of the family in new and provocative ways.

Mary Helen Washington is a critic, essayist, anthologist, and English professor at the University of Maryland. Previously she taught at the University of Massachusetts and was a Bunting Fellow at Harvard. She is the editor of numerous anthologies of black writing, including Black-Eyed Susans: Classic Stories by Black Women Writers; Midnight Birds: Stories of Contemporary Black Women Writers; Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women; and Memory of Kin: Stories of Family by Black Writers.