Ordinary Light
Ordinary Light: A Memoir is a 2015 book by poet Tracy K. Smith. It describes Smith’s upbringing as a middle-class black girl, especially her close relationship with her mother, and then her mother’s illness and death while Smith was in college. Ordinary Light was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Development and publication history Smith described the process of writing the memoir as becoming "an investigator of [her] own life," comparing recollections with her siblings and finding memory to be a "flawed lens." She began writing Ordinary Light in 2009, though had long wanted to write the memoir, born of a desire to write about her mother, who died in 1994 as Smith was graduating from college; Smith made initial efforts beginning in 1999 but found the pieces difficult to finish. Later, working with German writer Hans Manus Enzensberger in the context of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Smith found the structure of exchanging work as well as Enzensberger's feedback helped move the project forward. Smith has also said becoming a parent herself—her daughter was an infant when Smith was writing the book--gave her insight necessary to writing about her mother: "Not only did