Dianne Stewart (author)

Dianne Stewart (author) Dianne Stewart (born 4 March 1952) is a South African author who has published over 40 books for adults and for children. She writes in English, and her books have been translated both into African languages, including Xhosa,Zulu, Sotho,and Afrikaans, and European languages, including French,Spanish,and Swedish. Quotes That’s a great question. You know, as I think back, it’s interesting. When I think of language having power, I’m thinking of it as it relates to reading. My early experiences have to do with reading, for example, the biography of Harriet Tubman. I remember being in a summer program when I was about eight or nine. I recall presenting a report in front of my summer class, and I just remember being celebrated. They were saying, “Wow, she’s amazing! She’s going to go somewhere and do something great in the future.” This was what the counselors and the leaders of this particular class were saying. My oral report was so good that they had me present it again. I remember feeling so special and transformed by that experience, in part because Tubman’s story itself had transformed me. This was a summer program at Trinity College, and everyone in the room was black. I remember feeling proud — deep black pride — that I had absorbed the story of Harriet Tubman and was able to share it with a largely black audience A couple of things. One thing I learned was that one could never become too familiar with Black suffering. I saw this for myself. I could no longer be convinced that I was familiar with the traumas that define African American historical experience. Even though I was revisiting some aspects of history that I knew, it was overwhelming. I had substantive emotional and physiological responses to the material I was encountering. I was profoundly affected by the level of oppression and the depth of the trauma that African Americans have encountered in this country. External links Category:Living people Category:1952 births Category:South African Writers