PAPERBACK ISBN: 0-88258-223-2   $24.95

160 pages; 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Vignettes from the South

by Arthenia Bates

With simplicity and insight, Arthenia J. Bates offers in Seeds Beneath the Snow: Vignettes from the South a multifaceted portrait of, as one critic wrote, “characters of various kinds—some individuals and some types, but no stereotypes.”  Bates spins a fine web of stories from the black rural South: of mothers who wish more for their children than they themselves have had; of the discontents of family men too easily swayed by the allurements of “another gal”; of the restiveness of youth—struggling for an education, working in odd jobs, pushed toward a respectability that they cannot understand.  She fictionalizes a tale of the spiritual strivings of a young man for whom Islam and belief in Allah has come to represent liberation from “the white man’s God” and the God to which his elders cling so desperately. Bates’s poignant word-sketches confront both the conflicts and the potential inherent in such diverse institutions as the black church, social organizations, and the various hang-outs and juke joints that dot the southern landscape.  With deft skill, she draws within twelve vignettes a vivid picture of a rapidly disappearing southern culture.

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