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Encyclopedia of African-American Writing, Fourth Edition

Ellease Southerland

Poet, nonfiction and fiction writer, educator, publisher

AKA: Ebele Oseye

Born: June 18, 1943

INTRODUCTION

Southerland’s poems have been published in various periodicals, earning her Black World’s Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award (1972); they have also been collected in The Magic Sun Spins (1975). Her fiction includes numerous published short stories and her novella White Shadows (1964), which won the John Golden Award for Fiction from the Queens College of the City University of New York. Southerland’s first novel, Let the Lion Eat Straw (1979/2004), fictionally celebrates her mother’s daunting and difficult life. Ellease, named for her mother, was her mother’s third of 15 children and her eldest daughter, and the two women had been close friends when the elder Ellease died of cancer at age 45 (1965).

IMPACT

A 1980 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, Lion was named one of 1979’s “Best Books for Young Adults” by the American Library Association and the alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club; it was included in the New York Public Library’s Black Heritage Series (1987); and it was lavishly praised by almost 100 reviewers, who often cite its lyricality and its concision. The book has since been adapted to audio format (unabridged audiocassettes, 2004; unabridged CD, 2004).

In 1996, Southerland changed her name to Ebele (“mercy”; Nigerian Igbo) Oseye (“happy one”; Beninese or Nigerian). She published her second novel, A Feast of Fools: A Novel (1998), under both her birth name and her self-chosen name; the novel continues her family’s story from her first novel, as they migrate from the South to the North. Through her own Eneke Publications, Southerland has produced Opening Line: The Creative Writer: From Blank Page to Finished Story (2000, as Ellease Southerland), a pamphlet; and This Year in Nigeria: Memoir (2001, as Ebele Oseye), reminiscing about her travels in Africa across many years. These and other works reflect her fondness for Africa, especially Nigeria and Egypt. She is also said to be working on a third novel, a second poetry collection, a short-story collection, and a nonfiction book on communication. Her essays and reviews have been published in both literary journals (e.g., Présence Africaine) and popular magazines (e.g., Black World). From 1966 until 1972, Southerland worked as a social worker to help support her mother’s large family; from 1972 until 1976, she taught at Columbia University.

References

1 

Andrews, William L., Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris (Eds.). 1997. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.

2 

Brookhart, Mary Hughes, “Ellease Southerland” in Davis, Thadious M., and Trudier Harris-Lopez. (Eds.). 1984. Afro-American Fiction Writers After 1955. In Dictionary of Literary Biography (Vol. 33). Detroit: Gale Research. From Literature Resource Center.

3 

Dandridge, Rita B., in African American Literature: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. 2001, 2002. New York: Oxford University Press.

4 

“Ebele Oseye,” in Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale. 2008. Literature Resources from Gale.

5 

Falvey, Kate, in Page, Yolanda Williams. 2007. Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers. Greenwood Publishing Group.

6 

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Eds.). 2008. African American National Biography (8 vols.). New York: Oxford University Press.

7 

Mitchell, Caroline, in Hine, Darlene Clark, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn. (Eds.). 1993. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (Vols. 1, 2). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

8 

Ramey, Lauri, in Ostrom, Hans, and J. David Macey, Jr. (Eds.). 2005. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

9 

Rush, Theressa Gunnels, Carol Fairbanks Myers, and Esther Spring Arata. (Eds.). 1975. Black American Writers Past and Present: A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary (Vol. 2). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"Ellease Southerland." Encyclopedia of African-American Writing, Fourth Edition, edited by Laura Nicosia, , James F. Nicosia & , Salem Press, 2022. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=AAW4E_0594.
APA 7th
Ellease Southerland. Encyclopedia of African-American Writing, Fourth Edition, In L. Nicosia, , J. F. Nicosia & (Eds.), Salem Press, 2022. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=AAW4E_0594.
CMOS 17th
"Ellease Southerland." Encyclopedia of African-American Writing, Fourth Edition, Edited by Laura Nicosia, , James F. Nicosia & . Salem Press, 2022. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=AAW4E_0594.