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Work #1100 · Late

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Audre Lorde
1982 · English
"Biomythography" / Autobiographical prose-poetic narrative · Black-feminist / Lesbian autobiography

Lorde's 1982 "biomythography" — the prose-poetic memoir of her Harlem-Caribbean childhood, the women who shaped her, the becoming of "Zami"

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Late)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Non-Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Bi-directional
Space · Extent Finite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Singular
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

The 1934-1959 first-quarter-century of Lorde's life, narrated in 1982.

Space

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Harlem, Greenwich Village, Mexico, the Caribbean — Lorde's formative geography.

Matter

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

The embodied Lorde as proper subject of her own biomythography.

Observer

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Lorde the autobiographer-poet as participant-witness to her own becoming.

Energy

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

The erotic-political energies of Black-lesbian becoming.

Information

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

The narrative-mythological content of the biomythography.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Zami invented a genre — the "biomythography" — that has since been widely emulated; its centring of erotic and racial-political experience together has remained durable.