Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by bell hooks SIGNED

Bone Black is a lyrical memoir in which bell hooks reflects on her childhood growing up Black and female in the segregated American South. Told through a series of short, poetic vignettes, the book explores memory, imagination, and the formation of identity, tracing how a sensitive, introspective girl learns to survive within a world shaped by racism, sexism, class oppression, and family violence.

Rather than a linear autobiography, Bone Black moves through emotional landscapes—fear, creativity, longing, anger, and hope—showing how storytelling, reading, and inner life become tools of resistance. hooks examines the wounds of girlhood alongside moments of tenderness and resilience, revealing how silence, secrecy, and love coexist in the making of the self. The result is an intimate, spare, and powerful meditation on Black girlhood and the origins of a feminist consciousness.