Queer Harlem Renaissance Women in the Soviet Union: The Travels of Louise Thompson Patterson, Dorothy West and Constance White (HC) (2026)

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 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, postcards, letters and magazine articles. Powell argues that
it is salient to the historical record to re-story 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 and cold country of Russia provided a place of solace for three
marginalized women