Papers of Pearl Cleage Housed at Emory University Archives

Pearl Cleage, the poet, playwright, novelist, and social activist has donated her papers to the Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta. Cleage said she decided to donate her papers to Emory because the university “was a place that would value the work that I’ve done and make the papers available in a way that would make it productive to place them there.”

Randall K. Burkett, Emory’s curator of African American collections, says the acquisition of Cleage’s papers “adds luster to our holdings of brilliant African American women writers, artists, and activists. These include such talented individuals as Camille Billops, Elaine Brown, Lucille Clifton, Doris Derby, Samella Lewis, Louise Thompson Patterson, Mildred Thompson and Alice Walker. Cleage fits well in this pantheon of leading creative figures of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

A graduate of Spelman College, Cleage is best known for her novels What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day and Babylon Sisters.

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