Sisters of the Yam

Black Women and Self-Recovery

Second edition

By bell hooks

When Sisters of the Yam was originally released in 1994 it won critical praise and solidified bell hooks’ reputation as one of the leading public intellectuals of her generation. Today, the book is considered a classic in African American and feminist circles. It provides a launching point for much of hooks’ later work.

Tackling such issues as addiction, truth-telling, work, grieving, spirituality, and eroticism, hooks shares numerous strategies for self-recovery that can heal individuals and inspire struggle against racism, sexism, and consumer capitalism.

This new, expanded edition features a wide-ranging interview where hooks speaks to how her work continues and how it has changed. Sisters of the Yam stands apart as a self-help book, she says, because it links self-recovery with political resistance.

In these times of anti-feminist backlash, and with growing rates of depression and HIV/AIDS among black women, this important book offers multiple paths of healing and diverse ways of thinking spiritually.