Black author's fate no longer a mystery

[Lithos]

MILFORD, N.H. -- She ascends the steps triumphantly, her right arm extended outward, her autobiographically inspired book open in the palm of her hand, the pages flipping in the wind. Behind her smiles dreamily a 7-year-old boy -- her son, for whom she wrote the book to raise money to restore his ailing health.

Yet as Boston sculptor Fern Cunningham sketched this depiction of mother and child for a life-sized bronze statue, she often felt sorry for Harriet E. Wilson, the first African-American woman to have a novel published in English.

''It seemed like she rose up those steps and fell off," Cunningham said last Thursday night from the altar of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Milford, N.H., where she publicly unveiled her sketch of the statue for the first time. Over the next year, Cunningham will carve the statue for a memorial in Milford.

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/03/24/black_authors_fate_no_longer_a_mystery/

[undergroundrailroad]

1. What a wonderful accomplishment. Thanks Lithos for the link!