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Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by
his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a
Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction.
Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as
introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing
countless facets of Kenan’s life and work. Flying under the
radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical:
memories of the three women who raised him—a grandmother, a
schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt’s best friend;
recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous
discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and
crops—the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing—of the
eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh
the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him.
Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate
appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt,
Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful
collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a
great writer from whom readers will always wish to have more to
read.
"A meaningful panoramic view of what it means to be human...Cause for celebration." --Times-Picayune
From the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Let the Dead Bury Their Dead comes a moving, cliché-shattering group portrait of African Americans at the turn of the twenty-first century.
In a hypnotic blend of oral history and travel writing, Randall Kenan sets out to answer a question that has has long fascinated him: What does it mean to be black in America today? To find the answers, Kenan traveled America--from Alaska to Louisiana, from Maine to Las Vegas--over the course of six years, interviewing nearly two hundred African Americans from every conceivable walk of life. We meet a Republican congressman and an AIDS activist; a Baptist minister in Mormon Utah and an ambitious public-relations major in North Dakota; militant activists in Atlanta and movie folks in Los Angeles. The result is a marvellously sharp, full picture of contemporary African American lives and experiences.
"Nothing short of a wonder-book."--New York Times Book Review The
story collection that hailed the arrival of an essential voice in
southern literature--a sharp, rich exploration of what it means to
poor, Black, and gay in the United States. A three-year-old boy
begins to deliver messages from dead relatives. A zombie uprising
is led by an evil preacher. A woman is haunted by a child her
husband may have drowned. A pig talks. The stories in Let the Dead
Bury Their Dead embody the type of fiction that defined Randall
Kenan's career: set in the thinly veiled fictional Carolina town of
Tims Creek, they follow a diverse cast of Southern folkways, and
stare into a long shadow of history. A stunning mix of magic, myth,
and folktales, Kenan masterfully portrays a world of varied voices,
and in wondrous prose, brings to life the ghosts of our past and
present.
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The Souls of Black Folk (Paperback)
W. E. B Du Bois; Introduction by Randall Kenan; Afterword by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes
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R168
R130
Discovery Miles 1 300
Save R38 (23%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Often revealingly autobiographical, DuBois explores topics as
diverse as the death of his infant son and the politics of Booker
T. Washington. In every essay, he shows the consequences of both a
political color line and an internal one, as he grapples with the
contradictions of being black and being American. One of our
country's most influential books, "The Souls of Black Folk"
reflects the mind of a visionary who inspired generations of
readers to remember the past, question the status quo, and fight
for a just tomorrow.
These 12 stories--at once down to earth and fantastical, tragic and
hilarious--are about blacks and whites, young and old, rich and
poor, rural and sophisticated. "He (Kenen) weaves myth, folktales,
magic and reality like no one else I know".--Terry McMillan, author
of Waiting to Exhale. A New York Times Notable Book.
- This series explores the lives of well-known writers who often
struggled with the preceptions created by their sexual
preferences
- Volume-specific introductions discuss the individual writer's
life highlighting some of their struggles as well as their
legacy
- Informative sidebars pinpoint critical moments in the writer's
life as well as provide anecdotal information on the writer
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