Strange Fruit

Signet/New American Library, 1961-01-01. Mass Market Paperback. Very Good/in illustrated wraps. Softcover, 9th Printing June 1961 Signet/New American Library (D1953) 286 pages. Very Good, in illustrated wraps. Minor shelf/edge wear and a few faint creases to covers. Spine uncreased from reading. No previous owner markings - all pages are clean and crisp. Pages 9-14 have a small fold. Lillian Eugenia Smith (December 12, 1897 – September 28, 1966) was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States, known most prominently for her best-selling novel Strange Fruit (1944). A white woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality, she was a southern liberal unafraid to criticize segregation and work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, at a time when such actions virtually guaranteed social ostracism. In 1944, she published the bestselling novel Strange Fruit, which dealt with the then-forbidden and controversial theme of interracial romance. After the book's release, the book was banned in Boston and Detroit for "lewdness" and crude language. Strange Fruit was also banned from being mailed through the U.S. Postal Service, with the ban against the book being lifted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after his wife Eleanor Roosevelt requested it of him. Solid vintage paperback. LOC SSS-32