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Right now’s ebook suggestion was awarded the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2021 Gordon Burn Prize, and was a 2021 Nationwide Guide Award Nominee. I lastly picked it up this summer time after years on my TBR, and my god, what a learn! Abdurraqib is an outstanding author, as a lot of his loyal readers can attest. Written with deep reverence and intense curiosity, this ebook instills the identical emotions in readers all through every chapter.
A Little Satan in America: In Reward of Black Efficiency by Hanif Abdurraqib
This ebook is such an immersive learn and I used to be concurrently transported and transfixed by the tales and examinations of a wide range of Black performances. Abdurraqib seamlessly connects the private to the nationwide to even the worldwide. Studying this gave me the sense of Black efficiency as a fractal the place particular person performances, whether or not by skilled vocalists and even dancers in a highschool gymnasium, are consultant of the bigger collective.
Lots of the essays and explorations are of musicians and vocalists although not essentially fully targeted on their musical performances. The writer seems to be at Black funerals as efficiency, writing particularly about Michael Jackson after which, at size, Aretha Franklin. Being unable to go away the subject of Aretha, Abdurraqib writes about Wonderful Grace, the documentary launched a yr after Franklin’s passing. Aretha Franklin didn’t need the reside footage of her “Amazing Grace” recording launched, and the writer supplies much-needed background and element concerning the reside recording and extra.
From Josephine Baker to spades, magical negroes to minstrel reveals, this ebook might not cowl the breadth of Black efficiency, however the rigorously curated assortment creates an enchanting tapestry spanning over a century. I really like how the writer connects issues which are seen as archaic, like blackface, to the ways in which they repeatedly happen within the current day.
This ebook made me suppose deeply and critically about so many issues that I hadn’t beforehand thought of. Michael Jackson was not the primary to moonwalk, and never solely does the writer unveil the historical past, however he then connects this to certainly one of my favourite topics and vibes, Afrofuturism. Black folks have a protracted historical past of imagining ourselves among the many stars, whether or not it’s Octavia E. Butler, Billy Dee Williams, and even Patti Labelle.
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