![]() ![]() ![]() She was an intellectual nomad, traveling deftly across disciplines and genres. With a restless energy her writings explored inequalities and injustices – always plural, interconnected. In her book, Belonging: A Culture of Place (1990), she writes: “Again and again as I travel around I am stunned by how many citizens in our nation feel lost, feel bereft of a sense of direction, feel as though they cannot see where our journeys lead, that they cannot know where they are going.” Years later it would be a sweet surprise to come across the same song lyrics quoted in a new essay by hooks. ![]() Her words shifted something permanently in my soul they inspired, encouraged and motivated me. That was when I began to read bell hooks, who died of kidney failure on 15 December aged 69, more carefully and intensely. Feminism had given me a map of the world but I still kept getting lost. On the radio Tracy Chapman’s voice soared over the cries of seagulls, echoing my confusion: “I wanna wake up and know where I’m going”. As much as I loved the city, I was not sure I belonged. I was in Istanbul, writing stories, but mostly struggling. What I do remember is that her passionate feminism had become an inseparable part of my thinking and activism by the time I reached my mid-twenties. ![]() I don’t remember the first time I read bell hooks. ![]()
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