Remembering FP author Louise Meriwether (1923–2023)
We are deeply saddened to share that author, journalist, essayist, and antiwar activist Louise Meriwether has passed away. Meriwether is the author of several books, including Daddy Was a Number Runner.
Feminist Press founder Florence Howe (L) with Louise Meriwether (R).
Louise Meriwether was an early member of the Harlem Writers Guild and the Watts Writers Workshop, and was the first Black woman to be hired as a story editor in Hollywood. Her books include Fragments of the Ark and Shadow Dancing, as well as children’s biographies of African American icons such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. In 2016 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and her birthday, May 8, was declared Louise Meriwether Appreciation Day by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.
Bridgett M. Davis (L) with Louise Meriwether (R) at the Harlem Book Fair.
We are honored to be the publisher of Daddy Was a Number Runner, one of the first contemporary American novels featuring a young Black girl as the protagonist. Meriwether’s groundbreaking text inspired the careers of writers like Jacqueline Woodson and Bridgett M. Davis, among many others. To honor her literary legacy, Feminist Press launched the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize in 2016 to lift up debut women and nonbinary authors of color.
We are grateful to Ms. Meriwether for her brilliant prose, her generous spirit, and for lighting the way for generations of writers.
About Daddy Was a Number Runner:
"The novel’s greatest achievement lies in the strong sense of black life that it conveys: the vitality and force behind the despair. It celebrates the positive values of the black experience: the tenderness and love that often underlie the abrasive surface of relationships . . . the humor that has long been an important part of the black survival kit, and the heroism of ordinary folk. . . . A most important novel." —Paule Marshall, New York Times Book Review
"Daddy Was a Number Runner is not sugar-coated or show. It is truth lived in the vernacular—a Black girl's humor and empathy as she comes to understand Harlem's dreams and tragedies . . . from inside out. Louise Meriwether's voice is the Black feminist novelist's equivalent of the Blues. If you like modern classics by Naylor, Morrison, and Marshall, you will love this. . . . You will not be able to put it down or forget Francie, one of my all-time favorite characters." —Mary Libertin, Belles Lettres
"A tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling towards womanhood and survival." —Publishers Weekly
