{"id":11044,"date":"2010-12-28T21:18:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T21:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11044"},"modified":"2022-02-20T22:06:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T22:06:08","slug":"imitation-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11044","title":{"rendered":"Imitation of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/imitation-of-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Imitation of Life<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Duke University Press<br \/>\n<\/a>2004 (Originially published in 1933)<br \/>\n352 pages<br \/>\n6 b&amp;w photos, 1 line drawing<br \/>\nPaperback ISBN: 978-0-8223-3324-1<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fannie_Hurst\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fannie Hurst<\/a><\/strong> (1889\u20131968)<\/p>\n<p>Edited by:<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonehill.edu\/x8245.xml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daniel Itzkovitz<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of&nbsp; American Literature and Culture<br \/>\n<em>Stonehill College, North Easton, Massachusetts<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/imitation-of-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/Assets\/Books\/978-0-8223-3324-1_pr.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A bestseller in 1933, and subsequently adapted into two beloved and controversial films, <em>Imitation of Life<\/em> has played a vital role in ongoing conversations about race, femininity, and the American Dream. Bea Pullman, a white single mother, and her African American maid, Delilah Johnston, also a single mother, rear their daughters together and become business partners. Combining Bea\u2019s business savvy with Delilah\u2019s irresistible southern recipes, they build an <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aunt_Jemima\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aunt Jemima<\/a>-like waffle business and an international restaurant empire. Yet their public success brings them little happiness. Bea is torn between her responsibilities as a businesswoman and those of a mother; Delilah is devastated when her light-skinned daughter, Peola, moves away to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pass<\/a> as white. <em>Imitation of Life<\/em> struck a chord in the 1930s, and it continues to resonate powerfully today.<\/p>\n<p>The author of numerous bestselling novels, a masterful short story writer, and an outspoken social activist, Fannie Hurst was a major celebrity in the first half of the twentieth century. Daniel Itzkovitz\u2019s introduction situates <em>Imitation of Life<\/em> in its literary, biographical, and cultural contexts, addressing such topics as the debates over the novel and films, the role of Hurst\u2019s one-time secretary and great friend <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zora_Neale_Hurston\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Zora Neale Hurston<\/a> in the novel\u2019s development, and the response to the novel by Hurst\u2019s friend <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Langston_Hughes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Langston Hughes<\/a>, whose one-act satire, \u201cLimitations of Life\u201d (which reverses the races of Bea and Delilah), played to a raucous <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harlem\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harlem<\/a> crowd in the late 1930s. This edition brings a classic of popular American literature back into print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imitation of Life Duke University Press 2004 (Originially published in 1933) 352 pages 6 b&amp;w photos, 1 line drawing Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8223-3324-1 Fannie Hurst (1889\u20131968) Edited by: Daniel Itzkovitz, Associate Professor of&nbsp; American Literature and Culture Stonehill College, North Easton, Massachusetts A bestseller in 1933, and subsequently adapted into two beloved and controversial films, Imitation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1196,8,15,6462,25],"tags":[4807,302,2367],"class_list":["post-11044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-novels","category-passing-2","category-women","tag-daniel-itzkovitz","tag-duke-university-press","tag-fannie-hurst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63154,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11044\/revisions\/63154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}