(born Gloria Jean Watkins,
1952, in
Kentucky)
Feminist scholar,
poet,
memoirist, and social
critic. Known for her analyses of
race and
gender and her advocacy of black
female strength. Early in her career, she adopted and
lower-cased her
pseudonym from the name of her
outspoken great-grandmother, Bell Hooks. (The idea with the lower-case is to de-emphasize the
author's importance and emphasize the
ideas.)
In 1981, she became well-known with her book, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, which Publishers' Weekly ranked in 1992 among the 20 most important women's books of the last 20 years. An extremely prolific writer, she currently also teaches in the English department of New York City's City College (though she insists that intellectual work doens't have to come from universities).