Audre Lorde, a writer, activist, and mother of two, grew raised in Harlem in the 1930s. She graduated from Columbia University with a master's degree in library science, won a National Endowment for the Arts poetry award, and served as New York State's Poet Laureate from 1991 to 1993. She has twelve books to her credit, including Zami and The Black Unicorn. Lorde died of cancer in 1992, at the age of 58.