bell hooks was a prolific and trailblazing author, poet, feminist, cultural critic, and professor. The author of more than three dozen wide-ranging books, hooks published her first title, the poetry collection "And there we wept," in 1978. Her influential book "Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism" followed in 1981. Three years later she wrote "Feminist theory: From margin to center," which explored and criticized the feminist movement's propensity to center and privilege white women's experiences.