Audre Lorde was born on February 18, 1934, in Harlem, New York, the daughter of West Indianborn parents, Frederic Byron and Linda Gertrude (Belmar) Lorde, small-scale real estate managers. Lorde's parents named her Audrey Geraldine, but she dropped the y and her middle name by the time she became known to a reading audience. An early romantic poem by Lorde was published in Seventeen magazine when she was still a teenager. In 1954, Lorde attended the University of Mexico in Mexico City.

After her return from Mexico, Lorde enrolled at Hunter College, which was then a teachertraining school for women but since 1964 has been a co-educational institution and part of the City University of New York system. She graduated from Hunter in 1959 and proceeded to earn a master of science degree in library science in 1961 from Columbia University's prestigious School of Library Science. Soon thereafter, Lorde became a librarian...