Elaine Neil Orr, born in Nigeria to expat parents, brings us an indelible portrait of a young female artist, torn between two men and two cultures, struggling to find her passion and her purpose.

A Southern coming-of-age novel that sets three very different young people against the tumultuous years of the American civil rights movement.

A tale of social and spiritual awakening; a dispatch from a difficult era at home and abroad; and a meditation on faith, freedom, and desire.

Born into a white family of medical missionaries living in Nigeria in 1954 but hailing from the American South, Elaine Neil Orr was given two African names. The hospital staff dubbed the child: Bamidele and Funmilayo. “Bamidele” meant to her mother “born away from home,” but there were other meanings that, in time, the blond gangly girl would learn: “come home with me” or “follow me home” — spoken with arms outstretched, beckoning. “Funmilayo” translates simply: “she brings joy.”

Crossing borders and boundaries, countries and cultures, they are the children of the military, diplomatic corps, international business, education and missions communities. [...]In this groundbreaking collection, writers from around the world address issues of language acquisition and identity formation, childhood mobility and adaptation, memory and grief, and the artist’s struggle to articulate the experience of growing up global. And, woven like a thread through the entire collection, runs the individual’s search for belonging and a place called home.

In Subject to Negotiation, Elaine Neil Orr proposes negotiation as both a state of consciousness and a significant movement for women writers as well as feminist critics. Challenging the "subversive" model of feminist criticism, she argues for the importance of negotiation for feminist practice within a plurality of critical positions and identities. Without claiming the final word—indeed calling for more words on the subject—Orr sketches an empirical method for a negotiating feminist critcism and then in successive chapters demonstrates the method at work.

This intense examination of the writings of Tillie Olsen shows Elaine Neil Orr's deeply sympathetic passion for Olsen's literary world. Orr's objective is not simply to offer literary criticism but to interpret the subjects that inspire and disclose Olsen's spiritual vision.