Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White is an arresting and moving personal story about childhood, race, and identity in the American South, rendered in stunning illustrations by the author, Lila Quintero Weaver. In 1961, when Lila was five, she and her family emigrated from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, in the heart of Alabama's Black Belt. As educated, middle-class Latino immigrants in a region that was defined by segregation, the Quinteros occupied a privileged vantage from which to view the racially charged culture they inhabited. Weaver and her family were firsthand witnesses to key moments in the civil rights movement. But Darkroom is her personal story as well: chronicling what it was like being a Latina girl in the Jim Crow South, struggling to understand both a foreign country and the horrors of our nation's race relations. Weaver, who was neither black nor white, observed very early on the inequalities in the American culture, with its blonde and blue-eyed feminine ideal. Throughout her life, Lila has struggled to find her place in this society and fought against the discrimination around her.

Author: Lila Quintero Weaver
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Published: 03/01/2012
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780817357146


Award: Cybils - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/12/2011
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2012
Booklist 06/01/2012 pg. 62
Library Journal 07/01/2012 pg. 70
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2012
Kirkus Bea Big Book Guide 05/15/2012 pg. 44

About the Author

Lila Quintero Weaver received her BA from New College at The University of Alabama. She and her husband, Paul, live in Northport, Alabama. Darkroom is her first book.