Born Miltona Mirkin Cade in 1939 in New York City, Bambara adopted the African name "Bambara" in 1970. Upon her death in 1995, the New York Times deemed her a "major contributor to the emerging genre of black women's literature, along with the writers Toni Morrison and Alice Walker." She grew up in Harlem, Queens, and Jersey City. In 1959 she received her B.A. in Theatre Arts and English from Queens College and won the John Golden award for short fiction. While enrolled as a graduate student of modern American fiction at the City College of New York, she worked in both civic and local neighborhood programs in education and drama and studied theater in Europe. After receiving her Masters degree, Bambara taught at City College from 1965 to 1969. Immersed in the social and political activism of the 1960s and early 1970s, Bambara sometimes saw her writing of fiction as...