Reading Lists as Manifestos: Karla F. C. Holloway’s Bibliomemoir BookMarks: Reading in Black and White

This article examines the genre of bibliomemoir as a type of autobiographical writing that focuses on an author’s life story told through references to books and personal reading experiences. Until recently, bibliomemoirs have received little academic attention. This is, however, hardly an adequate response to the growing number of life narratives written within this pattern. Over the past few decades, memoirists have underlined the importance of reading practices, recounting and discussing literature that was formative in their writing career. Through such reading lists, authors can draw a bridge between their own beliefs, and tenets expressed by those whom they consider to be authority figures. Thus, with such allusions to literary colleagues, writers of bibliomemoirs are able to claim their place within the historical, cultural and academic continuity. In the present study, I argue that African American authors attribute particular importance to descriptions of their literary backgrounds due to the role education plays in establishing an individual’s social status. While some African American writers allude to the authority of white European literary tradition, others assert their racial heritage through stressing interest in religious oral texts of the Deep South. Using Karla Holloway’s 2006 memoir BookMarks: Reading in Black and White, I analyze how writers’ personal accounts of reading experiences allow them to affirm their place among the pantheon of literary personae and to prove connection to the wider racial legacy.