The activist and writer Bell Hooks, a pioneer among African-American feminists in the United States, died on Wednesday at her home in Berea (Kentucky) at the age of 69, her family and the university for which she worked as a teacher reported Wednesday.
In a statement, Berea College noted that Hooks has died “after a long illness”; While his relatives indicated in another note that he died early this Wednesday.
With more than forty works, Hooks is considered one of the most important feminist writers and theorists of her generation.
According to The Washington Post, her work redefined feminism in the US and broadened the movement, which has often been perceived in this country as an instrument of upper and middle-class white women.
Born on September 25, 1952, in Hopkinsville (Kentucky) under the name of Gloria Jean Watkins, she grew up in a family of seven siblings and attended racially segregated schools.
Later he studied at the Universities of Wisconsin, Stanford, and the Universities of California in Santa Cruz, where he studied English and received a doctorate in Literature.
Watkins adopted the pseudonym Bell Hooks, in honor of her so-called great-grandmother, to, as she described in an interview, emphasize the “substance of the books,” not who she was.
He published his first work, a collection of poems entitled “And There We Wept”, under the name Bell Hooks in 1978.
In 1981, she released “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism”, which examines the nature of black feminism through the lens of sexism and slavery; a subject that returned to analyze in books like “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” and “Feminism is for Everybody”.
She wrote more than 40 works that include essays, children’s books, and poetry, as well as touching on a multitude of topics that range from feminism to racism, through culture, politics, love, and spirituality.
In his books, he mixes personal opinions with politics when addressing issues as varied as the representation of blacks in movies, the nature of love, or the analysis of Madonna’s music videos.