bell hooks' books on gender, race and class were trailblazers

WASHINGTON • Iconic American black feminist author bell hooks, known for her trailblazing works on the intersection of gender, race and class, died on Wednesday aged 69, her family said.

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, hooks died at her home in Kentucky. hooks' sister Gwenda Motley told The New York Times the cause was end-stage renal failure.

Using the lower-case pen name bell hooks, in honour of her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, she published her first book of poems, And There We Wept, in 1978.

She gained acclaim in 1981 for Ain't I A Woman? Black Women And Feminism, in which she examined the impact of sexism and racism on black women, as well as racism within feminism, arguing for a more inclusive movement.

She went on to publish some 40 works, including poetry, children's fiction, memoir and literary criticism, delving into not only feminism, racism and other social justice issues, but also love.

"I'm talking about a love that is transformative, that challenges us in both our private and our civic lives," she told media group NPR in 2000. "We can love in a deep and profound way that transforms the political world in which we live."

Her words on love were the focus of the many tributes that poured in on social media after her death.

Historian Ibram X. Kendi, the best-selling author of How To Be An Antiracist, tweeted hooks' words on "the healing power of redemptive love" to his tens of thousands of followers and said her death "hurts, deeply". "All About Love changed me. Thank you, bell hooks. Rest in our love," he wrote.

Fellow renowned author Roxane Gay, who wrote Bad Feminist, said the loss of hooks was "incalculable". "May she rest in power," she tweeted.

Awarded numerous accolades throughout her career, hooks earned a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1983, after a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University, and was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2018.

A celebrated black thinker, her works became required reading on many a university course, gaining new readership amid the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice.

But for those only discovering her work after her death, "there's no shame", tweeted activist and writer Raquel Willis. "You can always read her words and meet her on the page."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE