ABSTRACT
Toni Cade Bambara, editor of the anthology The Black Woman, in her groundbreaking essay, On the Issue of Roles, emphasizes revolution begins with the self and in the self. Heeding her words, author became all the more vigilant in her effort to practice sustained, rigorous, critical self-examination. The author says, "Ain't I a Woman is the book of her self-recovery, the expression of author awakening to critical consciousness". She says, "It is the book of her heart, that she will not write such a book again". The author was particularly uncertain about the words self-recovery, the insistence in them that a wholeness of being-named here the self-is present, possible, that have experienced it, that it is a state to which can return. Ironically, the book which purport to offer the models for self-recovery that feminist work does not offer, retard and undermine both the growth of women's political consciousness and the progress of feminist movement.
