Abstract
This article discusses African-American female literature through the collection of short stories Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, originally published in 2018. The narratives in this book, which address ethnic-racial issues, portray a multiplicity of experiences of Black subjects in the United States nowadays. First, some considerations about identity construction are presented, especially in relation to Black women. Then, an analysis of the short stories “Fatima, the Biloquist: A Transformation Story” and “The Body's Defenses Against Itself” is proposed in order to verify in which ways the subjectivities of the protagonist Fatima are constructed from dialogues with herself and with other Black female characters.
Keywords
Heads of the Colored People
; Nafissa Thompson-Spires; African-American female literature; Black female subjectivities