Biography of california j cooper

  • Joan Cooper (November 10, – September 20, ), known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an.
  • Joan Cooper, known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an American playwright and author.
  • African American author and playwright J. California Cooper passed away on Saturday, September 20, , in her home of Seattle, Washington.

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    J. California Cooper dies at 82; a röst for struggles of black women

    J. California Cooper, who illuminated the struggles of black women in novels and short stories prized for their folksy wisdom and original voices, including those of an unborn child and a dead slave, died Sept. 20 in Seattle. She was

    The cause was heart failure, said her daughter, Paris Williams.

    Cooper was the author of seven short story collections and fem novels, including “Homemade Love,” which won an American Book Award in , and “Life Is Short but Wide,” a bestseller about the intertwined lives of two African American families.

    Concerned with hardships like poverty, bad marriages and rape and universal yearnings for truth, love and happiness, Cooper drew a loyal following that included former First Lady Laura Bush and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker.

    “I just loved her writing,” Walker, who discovered Cooper in the mids and became her first publisher, told the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

  • biography of california j cooper

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    Cooper, J. California 19(?)(?)–

    Author

    Name Inspired by Tennessee Williams

    Novels Explore Christian Morality

    Writes Stories as Monologues

    Selected writings

    Sources

    In , J. California Cooper&#x;s short story collection, A Piece of Mine, was the first book to be published by Wild Trees Press-a publishing company set up by African American novelist Alice Walker and her partner, Robert Allen. Others will now have the opportunity to enjoy Cooper&#x;s talent, humor, and insight into character, Walker wrote in the introduction to the book. Praising Cooper&#x;s style as deceptively simple and direct, Walker wrote that in its strong folk flavor, Cooper&#x;s work reminds us of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

    A Piece of Mine received many positive reviews. Diana Hinds, for example, writing in Books and Bookmen, described it as an example of how colloquial storytelling can also be beautifully crafted. Since that first break, Cooper

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    J. California Cooper

    American playwright and author

    Joan Cooper (November 10, &#;–&#;September 20, ), known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an American playwright and author. She wrote 17 plays and was named Black Playwright of the Year in for her play Strangers.[1] Cooper also received an American Book Award in , a James Baldwin Writing Award (), and a Literary Lion Award () from the American Library Association.[2]

    Early life

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    Joan “California” Cooper was born on November 10, in Berkeley, California to Joseph Cooper and Maxine Rosemary Lincoln Cooper.[3] She was the youngest of five siblings, having three sisters (one deceased, Shirley May) and one brother.[4][5] Her father worked as a scrap metal maker and her mother worked as a welder in World War II before owning a beauty salon later on.[3] &#;Though Cooper grew up in California, she also frequently spent time with her aunt in Marshall, Te