Queer Harlem Renaissance Women in the Soviet Union - The Travels of Louise Thompson Patterson, Dorothy West and Constance White

Queer Harlem Renaissance Women in the Soviet Union: The Travels of Louise Thompson Patterson, Dorothy West and Constance White explores the experiences of three prominent African American women from the Harlem Renaissance before, during and after a trip to Russia in 1932. Louise Thompson Patterson, Dorothy West and Constance White underwent gendered, racialized and sexualized transformations as a result of the trip, which they documented in works such as interviews, letters and magazines. Aisha Powell argues that it is salient to the historical record that the re-storying of this trip through the lens of women, as it has predominantly been understood through a man’s gaze. This book reviews how the perceivable, rigid, White cold country of Russia provided a place of solace for three marginalized women.