Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
A Time Must-Read Book of the Year Winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year Shortlisted for the 2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize A bold, innovative biography that offers a new understanding of the life, work, and enduring impact of Audre Lorde. We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-center walls. But even those who are inspired by Lorde’s teachings on “the creative power of difference” may be missing something fundamental about her life and work, and what they can mean for us today. Lorde’s understanding of survival was not simply about getting through to the other side of oppression or being resilient in the face of cancer.
Award History
0 wins · 3 total
| Award | Year | Result | Category / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor | 2025 | Longlist | Official source |
| Los Angeles Times Book Prize for BiographyMajor | 2024 | Finalist | Official source |
| Plutarch Award: Biography | 2025 | Finalist | Official source |
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies
This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.
01 Central figures
- Audre Lorde86%
02 Central places
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
03 Suggested argument
No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.
04 Reading orientation
40 / 100 academicSerious trade
An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.
Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 78%.