A NOTE ON THE TEXTS

Bambara herself paid much attention to the locations in which writing takes place as well as to the physicality and feel of the instruments used for writing. Her manuscript pages reflect this in many ways: typescript with hand-written notes in pen on the margins and backs of pages, often with directives as to where things should be inserted and in what sequence. We have followed her directives to the best of our abilities in transcribing these texts, particularly “Working At It In Five Parts” and “Puerto Ricans.” The first, “Five Parts,” is a piece that appears to have been worked and reworked and possibly remained unfinished in the state we found it in the archive. The second, “Puerto Ricans,” is a transcription of Bambara’s voice-over for a film. Given the range of notes and cross-outs, in two different colored pens, it appears that Bambara may have been correcting the transcription; here we have presented a reasonable interpretation of this amalgamation, to convey the sense that prevails in the body of the text. In both cases, we have, on occasion, silently corrected what appear to be obvious typos. In addition, in order to maintain more fluid readability, we have decided not to use strike-throughs and other standard notations.