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There’s a clarity to Audre Lorde’s writing that becomes most apparent when you are presented with a collection of her work Plainly written and devoid of the distractions of punctuation, her poetry is a series of questions and answers, of memories and musings Lorde’s prose, meanwhile, is easy to understand without feeling easy – there’s a sense that despite the lack of smoke and mirrors, we still need to work to understand exactly what she is saying Lorde’s work is not a series of straightforward proposals for a feminist utopia, or simple ideas about queer people assimilating into the mainstream Instead, her essays swing between lyrical musings about race, class, gender and sexuality, and bold statements of fact, backed up by evidence from her own academic research, and that of her peers   Lorde’s writing is unapologetic about being forthright; essays begin with phrases such as ‘There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise’, and ‘Black feminism is not white feminism in blackface’ However, mid-essay, a  sentence like ‘I am thankful that one of my children is male, since that helps keep me honest’ will appear, challenging even the most feminist of her readers This is not socialism or feminism for the classroom, but an acknowledgement that speaking the truth, even if it jars, must be at the heart of our politics In her introduction to Your Silence Will Not Protect You, the academic Sara Ahmed reminds us of Lorde’s famous statement that ‘revolution is a process, not a one-time event’; truly understanding Audre Lorde’s writing is also a process, and the more of it we are given, the easier it becomes   Perhaps this is an obvious observation to make, but it’s an important one It hasn’t always been easy to access Lorde’s ideas: a full collection of Lorde’s poetry and prose has not been available in Britain until now Her writing has largely been absorbed not as a full body of work, but through a series of social justice memes and one-line quotes found in the keynotes of feminist conferences This fact is quoted on the jacket