Winner of the Man Booker PrizeOne of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Decade One of the Top 10 Books of 2014 - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A "thrilling, ambitious . . . intense" (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, from the author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James combines masterful storytelling with his unrivaled skill at characterization and his meticulous eye for detail to forge a novel of dazzling ambition and scope. On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven unnamed gunmen stormed the singer's house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but rumors abounded regarding the assassins' fates. A Brief History of Seven Killings is James's fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica's history and beyond. Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters--assassins, drug dealers, journalists, and even ghosts--James brings to life the people who walked the streets of 1970s Kingston, who dominated the crack houses of 1980s New York, and who reemerged into a radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Brilliantly inventive, A Brief History of Seven Killings is an "exhilarating" (The New York Times) epic that's been called "a tour de force" (The Wall Street Journal). BIO Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. His most recent novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. It was also a New York Times Notable Book. James is also the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and an NAACP Image Award. His first novel, John Crow's Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was a New York Times Editors' Choice. James lives in Minneapolis. REVIEWS "How to describe Marlon James's monumental new novel A Brief History of Seven Killings? It's like a Tarantino remake of The Harder They Come but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner, with maybe a little creative boost from some primo ganja. It's epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex. It's also raw, dense, violent, scalding, darkly comic, exhilarating and exhausting--a testament to Mr. James's vaulting ambition and prodigious talent." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "James has written a dangerous book, one full of lore and whispers and history... [a] great book... James nibbles at theories of who did what and why, and scripts Marley's quest for revenge with the pace of a thriller. His achievement, however, goes far beyond opening up this terrible moment in the life of a great musician. He gives us the streets, the people, especially the desperate, the Jamaicans whom Marley exhorted to: 'Open your eyes and look within: / Are you satisfied with the life you're living?'" -- The Boston Globe "A sweeping novel that touches on family, friendship, celebrity, art, sexuality, ghetto politics, geopolitics, drug trade, gender, race and more, sending the reader from Jamaica to New York via Miami and Cuba and back." -- Newsweek [H] Riverhead Books / October 02, 2014 ﻿1.41" H x 9.55" L x 6.42" W (2.2 lbs) 688 pages [P] Riverhead Books / September 08, 2015 1.7" H x 8.2" L x 5.4" W (1.35 lbs) 704 pages

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A national best seller, deemed one of Morrison's most haunting works by the New York Times, A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment. In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives. BIO Toni Morrison is the author of eleven novels, from The Bluest Eye (1970) to God Help the Child (2015). She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019. REVIEWS "A Mercy is a sinewy novel [that] contains passages of insight and sensuality . . . It gathers its own power: Morrison plays a tight game with the social, legal and personal connections between her chess set of characters, a game in which each word-and every detail-counts. . . . Morrison renders the ugly beautiful and the unimaginable real: she is a fine teacher." --Heather Thompson, The Times Literary Supplement "The landscape of A Mercy is full of both beauties and terrors: snow 'sugars' eyelashes, yet icicles hang like 'knives' . . . But whatever the glories and rigors of nature may signify to the civilized, for these characters, living in the midst of it, nature doesn't signify. It's simply to be embraced or dreaded-like the people with whom they have to live. In Morrison's latest version of pastoral, it's only mercy or the lack of it that makes the American landscape heaven or hell, and the gates of Eden open both ways at once." --David Gates, The New York Times Book Review "Above all, A Mercy brims with the omnipresence of the author's questing, sifting brain, which the reader can feel injecting each strand of the story, subjecting it to the closest scrutiny before weaving it into the whole. The result is both a compelling yarn and a meditation on the varieties and degrees of enslavement and liberation; it is as precise, taut and tough-minded as Morrison herself." --Kevin Nance, Poets & Writers [H] Knopf Publishing Group / November 11, 2008 0.88" H x 9.56" L x 5.88" W (0.85 lbs) 176 pages [P] Vintage / August 11, 2009 0.7" H x 7.9" L x 5.2" W (0.46 lbs) 195 pages

A national best seller, deemed one of Morrison's most haunting works by the New York Times, A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.
In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives. 
BIO
<meta charset="utf-8">Toni Morrison is the author of eleven novels, from The Bluest Eye (1970) to God Help the Child (2015). She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019.
REVIEWS
<meta charset="utf-8"><meta charset="utf-8">"A Mercy is a sinewy novel [that] contains passages of insight and sensuality . . . It gathers its own power: Morrison plays a tight game with the social, legal and personal connections between her chess set of characters, a game in which each word-and every detail-counts. . . . Morrison renders the ugly beautiful and the unimaginable real: she is a fine teacher." --Heather Thompson, The Times Literary Supplement 
"The landscape of A Mercy is full of both beauties and terrors: snow 'sugars' eyelashes, yet icicles hang like 'knives' . . . But whatever the glories and rigors of nature may signify to the civilized, for these characters, living in the midst of it, nature doesn't signify. It's simply to be embraced or dreaded-like the people with whom they have to live. In Morrison's latest version of pastoral, it's only mercy or the lack of it that makes the American landscape heaven or hell, and the gates of Eden open both ways at once." --David Gates, The New York Times Book Review
"Above all, A Mercy brims with the omnipresence of the author's questing, sifting brain, which the reader can feel injecting each strand of the story, subjecting it to the closest scrutiny before weaving it into the whole. The result is both a compelling yarn and a meditation on the varieties and degrees of enslavement and liberation; it is as precise, taut and tough-minded as Morrison herself." --Kevin Nance, Poets &amp; Writers 
[H] Knopf Publishing Group  /  <meta charset="utf-8">November 11, 2008
0.88" H x 9.56" L x 5.88" W (0.85 lbs) 176 pages
[P] Vintage  /  August 11, 2009
<meta charset="utf-8"><meta charset="utf-8">0.7" H x 7.9" L x 5.2" W (0.46 lbs) 195 pages

A Mercy /// Toni Morrison

By the time of her death, at the tragically young age of thirty-four, Lorraine Hansberry had created two electrifying masterpieces of the American theater. With A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry gave this country its most movingly authentic portrayal of black family life in the inner city. Barely five years later, with The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Hansberry gave us an unforgettable portrait of a man struggling with his individual fate in an age of racial and social injustice. These two plays remain milestones in the American theater, remarkable not only for their historical value but for their continued ability to engage the imagination and the heart.With an Introduction by Robert Nemiroff BIO Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) electrified the theatrical world with her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, which won the New York Critics Circle Award for the 1958-59 season. Before her tragic death from cancer at the age of 34, she had already produced a remarkable body of work, including The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and Les Blancs. Her former husband and literary executor, the late Robert Nemiroff, posthumously produced and published her To Be Young, Gifted and Black and the musical Raisin. REVIEWS "Rich and warm and funny and varied … beautifully written." -– Los Angeles Times, on The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window"One of a handful of great American plays — it belongs in the inner circle, along with Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Glass Menagerie." -– Washington Post, on A Raisin in the Sun [P] Vintage / June 13, 1995 0.9" H x 7.9" L x 5.1" W (0.6 lbs) 368 pages

A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window /// Lorraine Hansberry

A dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession, and political corruption from the celebrated author of Stay with Me, “in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie” (The New York Times).Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future.Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician.When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola’s and Eniola’s lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayobámi Adébáyo shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between. BIO Ayobámi Adébáyo was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Stay with Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize, and the Kwani? Manuscript Prize. It has been translated into twenty languages and the French translation was awarded the Prix Les Afriques. Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, Stay with Me was a New York Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and NPR Best Book of the Year. REVIEWS A SheReads Best Book Club Pick of The Year A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Refinery 29, Financial Times, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, Electric Literature, Brittle Paper, and Write or Die Mag“Adebayo is a gifted storyteller, and like her debut novel, Stay with Me, her second book does not disappoint. The thin line between the poor and the wealthy is decimated when the lives of Eniola, an errand boy for a tailor, and Wuraola, a physician, collide. The violence of elections and the empty promises of politicians, the obscene wealth of the connected, the hunger and desperation of the have-nots all intersect in this examination of a community in Nigeria.” -- Oprah Daily“Eniola and Wuraola come from different classes in Nigeria, and in this dynamic sophomore novel from Adebayo, we see how socioeconomic stratification, exacerbated by gender inequality, can destroy lives at all levels. Never mind that these layers are all interdependent and innately connected —a paradox that leads here to a shocking, violent act from which there is no turning back.” -- Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times“Adébáyo shines a light on modern Nigeria in this dynamic political novel, crafting a dazzling tale of wealth and love in the process.” -- Chicago Review of Books [H] Knopf Publishing Group / February 7, 2023 1.5" H x 9.7" L x 6.8" W (1.5 lbs) 352 pages

A Spell of Good Things /// Ayobámi Adébáyo

A remarkable poetry collection with "inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom" (Monica Youn) from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed.Clint Smith’s vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith’s lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children’s lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up—through the changing world of which we are all a part.Above Ground is a breathtaking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent. BIO Clint Smith III is an American writer, poet and scholar. He is the author of #1 New York Times Best Seller, How the Word Is Passed, which won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was named one of the top ten books of 2021 by the New York Times. REVIEWS “I think there is an emergent theory, and maybe also a demand, when Clint Smith considers the brutalizing facts and language of war almost alongside a reverie about sprinkling sand on his baby’s feet; when he mourns the long and brutal and ongoing history of American slavery almost alongside making French toast with the kids or dancing until the whole family falls down. When he makes us witness the most incomprehensibly awful (and daily) brutalities not only beside but almost in tandem with the most incomprehensibly tender (and daily) actions of care. It’s a theory, and a demand, to which I think we must pay very close attention.”-- Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy “Clint Smith is a brilliant poet, one who knows ‘we are not all left / standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts,’ who knows that ‘you come from the parachute that didn't open -- / and then did.’—and who finds words to sing and to mourn, and to see us for who we are. Here is a poet who offers wisdom that ‘our bodies have / always been inexpricable vessels of energy we can / not control,’ and despite that (or perhaps because of it), also offers grace. This is a beautiful, vivid book, where ‘grandfather is a fist / full of embers’ and a dance party becomes a life-giving ceremony, and Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, is a reason enough to spark an love note. Much to love in this poetry collection, lyric keeping us above the ground, rooted into our world, blessed to be alive, despite it all. Clint Smith is a marvelous poet.” -- Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa “I’m so grateful that Clint Smith’s poems remind us of our interdependence on each other—on chrysanthemums, jellyfish, plankton, to note just a few of his magnificent poetic negotiations—all while turning his wide and generous eyes to fatherhood. This book is an illumination I sorely needed of both the outdoors and the quotidian—a joyful embrace and legacy of bright language and poignant questions.” -- Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders [H] Little Brown and Company / March 28, 2023 0.63" H x 9.53" L x 6.06" W (0.57 lbs) 128 pages

Above Ground /// Clint Smith

Akata Woman is the New York Times bestselling third book in the series that started with Akata Witch, named one of Time magazine’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time” and “100 Best YA Books of All Time,” from award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor.“In this series, Okorafor creates a stunningly original world of African magic that draws on Nigerian folk beliefs and rituals instead of relying on the predictable tropes of Western fantasy novels.”—Time magazineFrom the moment Sunny Nwazue discovered she had mystical energy flowing in her blood, she sought to understand and control her powers. Throughout her adventures in Akata Witch and Akata Warrior, she had to navigate the balance between nearly everything in her life—America and Nigeria, the “normal” world and the one infused with juju, human and spirit, good daughter and powerful Leopard Person.Now, those hard lessons and abilities are put to the test in a quest so dangerous and fantastical, it would be madness to go . . . but it may destroy the world if she does not. With the help of her friends, Sunny embarks on a mission to find a precious object hidden deep in an otherworldly realm. Defeating the guardians of the prize will take more from Sunny than she has to give, and triumph will mean she will be forever changed. BIO Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian-American author of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for children and adults. Her works include Who Fears Death (currently in development at HBO into a TV series), the Binti novella trilogy, The Book of Phoenix, the Akata books, and Lagoon. She is the winner of Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, and Lodestar Awards, an Eisner Award nominee, and her debut novel Zahrah the Windseeker won the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. Nnedi has also written comics for Marvel, including Black Panther: Long Live the King and Wakanda Forever (featuring the Dora Milaje) and the Shuri series. Her science fiction comic series LaGuardia (from Dark Horse) is an Eisner and Hugo Award nominee and her memoir Broken Places & Outer Spaces is a Locus Award nominee. Nnedi is also creating and co-writing the adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed with Viola Davis and Kenyan film director Wanuri Kahiu. Nnedi holds two MAs (literature and journalism) and a PhD (literature). She lives with her daughter Anyaugo and family in Illinois. Follow Nnedi on Twitter (as @Nnedi), Facebook, and Instagram. Learn more about Nnedi at Nnedi.com. [H] Viking Books for Young Readers / January 18, 2022 1.4" H x 8.4" L x 5.9" W (1.15 lbs) 416 pages [P] Viking Books for Young Readers / January 17, 2023 1.1" H x 8.19" L x 5.43" W (0.88 lbs) 416 pages

Akata Woman /// Nnedi Okorafor

2022 HOUSATONIC BOOK AWARDS FINALIST2022 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS FINALIST2021 BIG OTHER BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY FINALIST All the Rage addresses everyday pleasure as well as the present condition of racism in the United States—a time marked both by recurring police violence and intense artistic creativity—from a variety of perspectives: being Black, an immigrant, a woman, and queer. At its core dwells “Living in the Abattoir,” a series in which people of color live out their days as both workers and meat. All the Rage simultaneously invokes both anger at ongoing systemic violence and the frivolity of something that is, perhaps temporarily, “trending.” BIO Rosamond S. King is a creative and critical writer, performer, and artist whose work is deeply informed by the many cultures and communities she is part of, by history, and by a sense of play. Her poetry has been published in more than two dozen journals and anthologies, and she has performed in theatres, museums, nightclubs, and traditional literary venues in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and throughout North America. She has also received numerous honors, including a Fulbright Award and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson, Mellon and Ford Foundations, Poets House and the Franklin Furnace Fund. She is the author of the chapbook, At My Belly and My Back and the critical book, Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination, which won the 2015 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Prize for the best book in Caribbean studies. King holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a minor in Performance Studies from New York University, and is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York. The goal of her work is to make people feel, wonder, and think, in that order. REVIEWS Rosamond S. King proves again and again that she is a poet rooted in place with connections across seas and communities. The collection, inclusive of Trinidadian Creole English, hashtags, and outside textual references, ends with a section that takes the reader into moments of bodily and psychic joy. This book, as the title suggests is all the rage. -- Rajiv Mohabir, Electric Lit It’s been a constant question, what kind of art will come from this moment, what kind of art this moment needs. Poet, performance artist, and literary theorist Rosamond S. King’s newest collection is a bold and urgent movement towards meeting this unmeetable moment. At once formally innovative and passionate, this collection struggles and dances in a single motion. -- C. Bain, Muzzle Magazine Lambda Award winner Rosamond S. King’s All the Rage (Nightboat, Apr.) presents an intersection of Black, immigrant, female, and queer issues, with the gut-punch ‘Living in the Abattoir’ series at its heart presenting people of color living in an abattoir where they are both workers and product. -- Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal "Rosamond S, King’s second poetry collection, All the Rage, addresses the everyday joy, pleasure and ever-present force of racism in America. In a time where the focus on and threat of police violence on Black men and women is so great, creativity and artistry continue to rise. This collection addresses the reality of living in America from a multitude of perspectives, exploring how people of color might live in an alternate yet familiar reality." -- Bella Morais, The Root "Simple and direct language butts up against poems structured like riddles. King shows that she can tell the truth through wordplay, irony, and allegory, but most often she chooses to tell it straight, not slant." -- Emily Pérez, RHINO [P] Nightboat Books / April 06, 2021 0.8" H x 7.9" L x 6.3" W (0.45 lbs) 112 pages

2022 HOUSATONIC BOOK AWARDS FINALIST 2022 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS FINALIST 2021 BIG OTHER BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY FINALIST
All the Rage addresses everyday pleasure as well as the present condition of racism in the United States—a time marked both by recurring police violence and intense artistic creativity—from a variety of perspectives: being Black, an immigrant, a woman, and queer. At its core dwells “Living in the Abattoir,” a series in which people of color live out their days as both workers and meat. All the Rage simultaneously invokes both anger at ongoing systemic violence and the frivolity of something that is, perhaps temporarily, “trending.”
BIO
Rosamond S. King is a creative and critical writer, performer, and artist whose work is deeply informed by the many cultures and communities she is part of, by history, and by a sense of play. Her poetry has been published in more than two dozen journals and anthologies, and she has performed in theatres, museums, nightclubs, and traditional literary venues in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and throughout North America. She has also received numerous honors, including a Fulbright Award and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson, Mellon and Ford Foundations, Poets House and the Franklin Furnace Fund. She is the author of the chapbook, At My Belly and My Back and the critical book, Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination, which won the 2015 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Prize for the best book in Caribbean studies.
King holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a minor in Performance Studies from New York University, and is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York. The goal of her work is to make people feel, wonder, and think, in that order.
REVIEWS
<div class="review first">
Rosamond S. King proves again and again that she is a poet rooted in place with connections across seas and communities. The collection, inclusive of Trinidadian Creole English, hashtags, and outside textual references, ends with a section that takes the reader into moments of bodily and psychic joy. This book, as the title suggests is all the rage. -- Rajiv Mohabir, Electric Lit
</div>
<div class="review">
It’s been a constant question, what kind of art will come from this moment, what kind of art this moment needs. Poet, performance artist, and literary theorist Rosamond S. King’s newest collection is a bold and urgent movement towards meeting this unmeetable moment. At once formally innovative and passionate, this collection struggles and dances in a single motion. -- C. Bain, Muzzle Magazine
</div>
<div class="review">
Lambda Award winner Rosamond S. King’s All the Rage (Nightboat, Apr.) presents an intersection of Black, immigrant, female, and queer issues, with the gut-punch ‘Living in the Abattoir’ series at its heart presenting people of color living in an abattoir where they are both workers and product. -- Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
</div>
<div class="review">
"Rosamond S, King’s second poetry collection, All the Rage, addresses the everyday joy, pleasure and ever-present force of racism in America. In a time where the focus on and threat of police violence on Black men and women is so great, creativity and artistry continue to rise. This collection addresses the reality of living in America from a multitude of perspectives, exploring how people of color might live in an alternate yet familiar reality." -- Bella Morais, The Root 
</div>
<div class="review">
"Simple and direct language butts up against poems structured like riddles. King shows that she can tell the truth through wordplay, irony, and allegory, but most often she chooses to tell it straight, not slant." -- Emily Pérez, RHINO
[P]  Nightboat Books  /  <meta charset="utf-8">April 06, 2021  
<meta charset="utf-8">0.8" H x 7.9" L x 6.3" W (0.45 lbs) 112 pages
</div>

All the Rage /// Rosamond S. King

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 LA TIMES ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION.“The electrifying fiction debut that has been called ‘a modern Mrs. Dalloway.’”—THE ATLANTIC"Mind-bending and utterly original."—Brandon Taylor“Slim in the hand, but its impact is massive.”—Ali SmithOne woman. One day. One decision. A blistering, fearless, and unforgettable literary debut from "a stunning new writer." (Bernardine Evaristo) Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy an apartment. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.The narrator of Assembly is a black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?Assembly is a story about the stories we live within – those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers.And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life. With a steely, unfaltering gaze, Natasha Brown dismantles the mythology of whiteness, lining up the debris in a neat row and walking away. BIO Natasha Brown has spent a decade working in financial services, after studying Maths at Cambridge University. She developed Assembly after receiving a 2019 London Writers Award in the literary fiction category. REVIEWS “Natasha Brown’s exquisite prose, daring structure and understated elegance are utterly captivating. She is a stunning new writer.” -- Bernadine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other “Mind-bending and utterly original. Assembly is like Thomas Bernhard in the key of Rachel Cusk but about black subjectivity.” -- Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and Filthy Animals “The narrator of this tightly conceived and distinctively written debut novel is perceptive, precise and unsparing with her words…an elegiac examination of a Black woman’s life and an acerbic analysis of Britain’s racial landscape. Brown’s rhythmic, economic prose renders the narrator’s experiences with breathless clarity, especially the steady, gnawing stream of racial and sexual harassment she faces. At only 100 pages, the book moves at an almost dizzying speed…Assembly is a smart novel that takes risks with the questions it raises. I look forward to Brown’s next work, in which she might try — with the same refreshing conviction — to answer them.” -- New York Times Books Review “[A] crisp debut...As well as being a shrewd exploration of the psychological toll of generational trauma and colonial legacies, the book is also, thanks to its biting humor, a broad criticism of the absurdity of contemporary life.” -- The New Yorker [H] Little Brown and Company / September 14, 2021 0.7" H x 7.1" L x 5.0" W (0.25 lbs) 112 pages [P] Back Bay Books / September 13, 2022 0.5" H x 8.0" L x 5.4" W (0.3 lbs) 112 pages

Assembly /// Natasha Brown

"Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence." --Entertainment Weekly (A) The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father's own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started--a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu's new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer. BIO Uzodinma Iweala received the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, all for Beasts of No Nation. He was also selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, he lives in New York City and Lagos, Nigeria. REVIEWS "A startling debut.... Iweala's acute imagining allows him to depict the war as a mesh of bestial pleasures and pain."--The New Yorker "The hypnotic present tense, first-person narration draws the reader deep into the child soldier's shattered psyche."--Washington Post "An outstanding first novel. . . . Resonant, beautiful. . . . Iweala's book will be readily embraced by readers."-- Janet Maslin, New York Times [P] Harper Perennial / September 07, 2021 ﻿0.3" H x 7.0" L x 4.5" W (0.25 lbs) 160 pages

Beasts of No Nation /// Uzodinma Iweala

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding New York Times bestseller transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Morrison's magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel--first published in 1987--brings the unimaginable experience of slavery into the literature of today and into the reader's comprehension. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. ﻿Introduction by A. S. Byatt in the hardcover edition. BIO Toni Morrison is the author of eleven novels, from The Bluest Eye (1970) to God Help the Child (2015). She received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died in 2019. REVIEWS "A masterwork. . . . Wonderful. . . . I can't imagine American literature without it." --John Leonard, Los Angeles Times "There is something great in Beloved a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you." --The New Yorker "Compelling . . . . Morrison shakes that brilliant kaleidoscope of hers again, and the story of pain, endurance, poetry and power she is born to tell comes right out." --The Village Voice [H] Everyman's Library / October 17, 2006 1.02" H x 8.22" L x 5.28" W (1.12 lbs) 316 pages [P] Vintage / June 08, 2004 0.9" H x 7.9" L x 5.1" W (0.75 lbs) 352 pages

Beloved /// Toni Morrison

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize A Phenomenal Book Club Pick TIME • Best Books of the Month New York Times • Editors’ Choice Vulture • Most Anticipated Books 2022 Goodreads • Hot and Fresh: 60 Highly Anticipated Debut Novels Ms. Magazine • Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022 SheReads.com • Best Books Coming in Summer 2022 Essence • 18 New Books We Can’t Wait To Read This SummerAn extraordinary debut novel shot through with remarkable nuance and tenderness, Big Girl traces the intergenerational hungers of the profoundly lovable Malaya Clondon.“Alive with delicious prose and the cacophony of ’90s Harlem, Big Girl gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn-out ideas, who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame.” —Janet MockMalaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church’s stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem’s forbidden street foods.For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions—fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors’ appointments—don’t work on Malaya.As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand “ladyness” and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called “femininity” that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya’s weight. Nothing seems to help—until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms.Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is “filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don’t always fit with the outside world” (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America. BIO Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D. is the author of the novel Big Girl, a 2022 most anticipated pick from Vulture, Ms, The Root, Goodreads and SheReads.com. Her previous books are The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora, and the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love, winner of the Judith Markowitz Award for Fiction from Lambda Literary. She is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University. A native of Harlem, she currently lives in Washington, DC. REVIEWS Sullivan (the collection Blue Talk and Love) charms in her stunning debut novel about a Black girl’s coming-of-age.... All of Sullivan’s characters—even the cruel ones—brim with humanity, and the author shines when conveying the details of Malaya’s comforts, such as Biggie Smalls lyrics, the portraits she paints in her room, the colors she braids into her hair, and the sweet-smelling dulce de coco candies she eats with a classmate with whom she shares a close and sexually charged friendship. This is a treasure.--Publishers Weekly, starred review [A] young girl learns—and redefines—what it means to take up space . . . Sullivan writes with tenderness and uses the language of poetry to communicate her protagonist’s inner life . . . A lyrical and important coming-of-age novel.--Kirkus Reviews In Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s achingly beautiful coming-of-age debut novel, Big Girl, this body carries the weight of an entire neighborhood.... Big Girl triumphs as a love letter to the Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early — and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists. In this novel, gentrification means a violent thinning of the true beauty of Black and immigrant cultures and tightknit communities that have been nearly erased in service of commercialism and whiteness.--Cleyvis Natera , New York Times Book Review [H] Liveright Publishing Corporation / July 12, 2022 1.11" H x 9.26" L x 6.26" W (1.02 lbs) 288 pages [P] Liveright Publishing Corporation / June 13, 2023 288 pages

Big Girl /// Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE - READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY - In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings deal with their mother's death and her hidden past--a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake. "At turns delightfully juicy and then stunningly wise, Black Cake is a winner."--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022--Glamour, Bustle, Marie Claire, Essence, Parade, Business Insider, Town & Country, Vulture, PopSugar, W magazine, BookPage In development as a Hulu original series produced by Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey (Harpo Films), and Kapital Entertainment We can't choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become? In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage, and themselves. Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to "share the black cake when the time is right"? Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever? Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch. BIO Charmaine Wilkerson is an American writer who has lived in Jamaica and is based in Italy. A graduate of Barnard College and Stanford University, she is a former journalist whose award-winning short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Black Cake is her first novel. REVIEWS "Exquisite and expansive, Black Cake took ahold of me from the first page and didn't let go. This is a novel about the formation and reformation of a family, and the many people, places, and events that can shape our inheritances without our knowing. A gripping, poignant debut from an important, new voice." --Naima Coster, New York Times bestselling author of What's Mine and Yours"Black Cake has all the ingredients of the tastiest stories: secrets, romance, danger, and a cast of characters so real you want to scream at them one moment and hug them the next." --Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev"So beautifully written I'm struggling to believe it's a debut . . . The cake is the glue that holds all the layers together and the scenes are so well drawn I could almost taste the cake, feel the warm sea on my skin." --Nikki May, author of Wahala [H] Ballantine Books / February 01, 2022 1.6" H x 9.3" L x 6.2" W (1.4 lbs) 400 pages [P] Ballantine Books / November 29, 2022 0.92" H x 7.97" L x 5.12" W (0.73 lbs) 416 pages

Black Cake  /// Charmaine Wilkerson

A Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Seen on the Today Show“If you like Practical Magic… you will love Black Candle Women.” —Jenna Bush HagerNamed a Best Book of the Month by: Shondaland, MS. Magazine, TODAY.com, Reader’s Digest, Katie Couric Media, AARP Sisters, Goodreads, BookRiotA warm and wry family drama with a magical twist about four generations of Black women, a family love curse, and the secrets they keep for and from each other over one very complicated yearGenerations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have always lived together in their quaint California bungalow. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when young Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray.For the family has withheld a crucial secret from Nickie all these years: any person a Montrose woman falls in love with will die. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, they're set on a collision course dating back to 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter—where a hidden story in a mysterious book may just hold the answers they seek in life and in love…BIO Diane Marie Brown is a professor at Orange Coast College and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department. She has a BA and MPH from UCLA and a degree in fiction from USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. She grew up in Stockton and now lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, their four daughters, and their dog, Brownie. Black Candle Women is her debut novel. REVIEWS Richly imagined and elegantly told, with plenty of satisfying secrets, heartaches, and twists. Black Candle Women is a promising debut.” -- Sadeqa Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of Yellow Wife and Reese's Book Club Pick The House of Eve“A spellbinding romp. This book will have you asking yourself, who amongst us isn’t cursed? More importantly, how far would you go for a chance at love?” -- Carolyn Huynh, author of GMA Book Club Pick The Fortunes of Jaded Women“Written with warmth and an eye for detail, Diane Marie Brown’s Black Candle Women explores the bonds of family and the magical power of belief to transform our lives.” -- Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, authors of The Thread Collectors“Propulsive and poignant, Black Candle Women concocts an intoxicating potion of warmth, wisdom, and wonder.” -- Ava DuVernay [H] Graydon House / February 28, 2023 1.6" H x 12.0" L x 7.9" W (1.05 lbs) 368 pages

Black Candle Women: A Read with Jenna Pick /// Diane Marie Brown

A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Oprah Magazine - Time - Vogue - Vulture - Essence - Elle - Cosmopolitan - Real Simple - Marie Claire - Refinery 29 - Shondaland - Pop Sugar - Bustle - Apartment Therapy - The Rumpus - She Reads - The Everygirl - Medium - Career Contessa"Nothing short of sublime, and the territory [Mans'] explores...couldn't be more necessary."--Vogue "A tender distillation of black girlhood. Mans draws together both intricate adornment and the unvarnished truth."--Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster "[Mans'] lucid and lyrical lines are as undeniable as those of a pop song yet as arresting as only spoken word artistry can be." -- O, the Oprah Magazine From spoken word poet Jasmine Mans comes an unforgettable poetry collection about race, feminism, and queer identity. With echoes of Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, Mans writes to call herself--and us--home. Each poem explores what it means to be a daughter of Newark, and America--and the painful, joyous path to adulthood as a young, queer Black woman. Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering Black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing. BIO Jasmine Mans is a Black American poet, artist from Newark, New Jersey. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison, with a B.A. in African American Studies. Her debut collection of poetry, Chalk Outlines of Snow Angels, was published in 2012. Mans is the resident poet at the Newark Public Library. She was a member of The Strivers Row Collective. REVIEWS "If your grandmother has ever surprised you by bopping along to trap music at a cookout you will love Jasmine Mans' work." --Essence "Jasmine Mans pulls at all the threads of who she is as a Black queer woman from Newark, unravels herself, then puts herself back together via clear, precise language that brooks no argument... Black Girl, Call Home moves from vignette to cultural criticism to ballad to eulogy to memoir with grace." --Vulture "Writing in surefooted verse, Mans refuses to allow our stories to be misunderstood."--Dr. Alysia Harris, Pushcart nominated author of How Much We Must Have Looked Like Stars to Stars Berkley Books / March 09, 2021 0.6" H x 7.8" L x 5.1" W (0.4 lbs) 256 pages

Black Girl, Call Home /// Jasmine Mans

One of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All TimeWinner of the L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist for the 2019 National Book AwardThe New York Times BestsellerNamed a Best Book of 2019 by The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, GQ, Vogue, and The Washington Post“A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made.” –Neil Gaiman“Gripping, action-packed….The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesThe epic novel from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven KillingsIn the stunning first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.As Tracker follows the boy’s scent–from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers–he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that’s come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both. BIO Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. He is the author of the New York Times-bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2019. His novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. It was also a New York Times Notable Book. James is also the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and an NAACP Image Award. His first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. James divides his time between Minnesota and New York. REVIEWS “Gripping, action-packed… The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe — filled with dizzying, magpie references to old movies and recent TV, ancient myths and classic comic books, and fused into something new and startling by his gifts for language and sheer inventiveness.” -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times“No novel this year was as intoxicated by the pleasures and possibilities of storytelling as this bloody, bawdy, profane, deliriously overstuffed work of high fantasy. The first part of a planned trilogy, Marlon James’s book already boasts more swagger and invention than most multivolume epics dragging toward their 10th installment.” -- The Wall Street Journal, Best Books of 2019“The first volume of a promised trilogy, a fabulist reimagining of Africa, with inevitable echoes of Tolkien, George R.R. Martin and Black Panther, but highly original, its language surging with power, its imagination all-encompassing. . . . Marlon is a writer who must be read.” -- Salman Rushdie, TIME “James’ visions don’t jettison you from reality so much as they trap you in his mad-genius, mercurial mind. . . . Drenched in African myth and folklore, and set in an astonishingly realized pre-colonized sub-Saharan region, Black Leopard crawls with creatures and erects kingdoms unlike any I’ve read. . . . This is a revolutionary book.” -- Entertainment Weekly [H] Riverhead Books / February 05, 2019 1.5" H x 9.4" L x 6.1" W (2.0 lbs) 640 pages [P] Riverhead Books / February 04, 2020 1.5" H x 9.0" L x 6.1" W (1.6 lbs) 640 pages

Black Leopard, Red Wolf /// Marlon James

Black Nature is the first anthology to focus on nature writing by African American poets, a genre that until now has not commonly been counted as one in which African American poets have participated. Black poets have a long tradition of incorporating treatments of the natural world into their work, but it is often read as political, historical, or protest poetry--anything but nature poetry. This is particularly true when the definition of what constitutes nature writing is limited to work about the pastoral or the wild. Camille T. Dungy has selected 180 poems from 93 poets that provide unique perspectives on American social and literary history to broaden our concept of nature poetry and African American poetics. This collection features major writers, such as Phillis Wheatley, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, Wanda Coleman, Natasha Trethewey, and Melvin B. Tolson, as well as newer talents, such as Douglas Kearney, Major Jackson, and Janice Harrington. Included are poets writing out of slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century African American poetic movements. Black Nature brings to the fore a neglected and vital means of considering poetry by African Americans and nature-related poetry as a whole. BIO Camille T. Dungy is an associate professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. She is the author of two poetry collections, What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison and Suck on the Marrow, and has helped edit two other poetry anthologies. REVIEWS "Dungy has compiled what might have taken a lifetime to assemble, yet here it is at this moment when our culture is assessing both its relationship to the natural world and its relationship with its black citizens. The timing could not be better for such a comprehensive look at what black poets have contributed to our understanding of nature. What excites about this anthology is that it is not only the richest and most comprehensive collection of poems by black poets I have read, it is the richest and most comprehensive collection of poems about nature that I have read. I believe the book should be widely read, taught, and talked about." --Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Rope "With extraordinary insight and substantial creative vision the rich synthesis of this anthology offers a strikingly original contour to the seasons of black poets and poetry. The critical wisdom accumulated here is as important as the beautifully structured cycles that Dungy uses as landscaped categories to contain these important poems. The methodology here is as graceful as it is rigorously intelligent. Dungy's anthology is a major contribution to twenty-first century Black Studies." --Karla FC Holloway, author of BookMarks: Reading in Black and White--A Memoir University of Georgia Press / December 01, 2009 1.0" H x 8.9" L x 5.9" W (1.35 lbs) 387 pages

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry /// edited by Camille Dungy

As the title implies, this beautifully written collection bursts with stories reminiscent of blackberries-–-small, succulent morsels that are inviting and sweet, yet sometimes bitter. Crystal Wilkinson provides an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of her characters: Two misfit teenagers seek stolen moments of love and acceptance in the cloak of night ("Hushed"); a woman spends every waking hour obsessed with dying yet ironically watching her loved ones pass away before her ("Waiting on the Reaper"); a wife confronts her husband's mistress in a diner over potato skins and cornbread ("Need"); and a pious young woman's torment erupt in a violent and unsuspecting resolution ("No Ugly Ways"). The stories in this award-winning collection are terse and transient, like snippets taken from random dreams, thoughts, or conversations. Wilkinson is able to embed a vibrancy into each stunningly descriptive and evocative tale. Infused with humor, sadness and honesty, this provocative and haunting work features a new foreword and a new afterword by nationally acclaimed authors Nikky Finney and Honorée Jeffers. BIO Crystal Wilkinson is the author of The Birds of Opulence (winner of the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence), Blackberries, Blackberries (winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature), and Water Street (finalist for both the UK's Orange Prize for Fiction and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). The winner of the 2008 Denny Plattner Award in Poetry from Appalachian Heritage magazine and the Sallie Bingham Award from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, she has received recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts. She was named a 2020 USA Fellow by United States Artists and teaches at the University of Kentucky, where she is Associate Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing Program. Nikky Finney is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets and the John H. Bennett, Jr., Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina. She edited Black Poets Lean South and authored On Wings Made of Gauze, Rice, The World Is Round, Head Off & Split (winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry), and Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry. Finney's work, including her now legendary National Book Award acceptance speech, is on display in the inaugural exhibition of the African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, D.C. REVIEWS "Crystal Wilkinson's characters live and breathe. They walk, talk and leap off the page into your lap and living rooms from their front porch. Her honest and sensual narrative pulls the reader in like a lover sharing their most intimate secrets. Sometimes whispering, often times singing, but always clear and evocative. Her Affrilachian tenor rings throughout this work. Let out the sleeper sofa. Throw in more potatoes to stretch the soup. Her characters are about to move in." --Frank X. Walker, author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York "These tales work the magic Wilkinson intended." --The Atlanta Tribune "Wilkinson makes a stunning debut with this lyrical collection of short stories set in the rural outback of the South. Written with an extraordinary grasp of descriptive prose, the author transports readers to the humid beauty of the backcountry and the people who inhabit the area. Proud -- yet vulnerable -- women waiting for a little bit of happiness to find them, women looking back at their lives with fondness and just a tinge of regret.... [A]ll of these characters come alive under Wilkinson's sure hand." --Today's Librarian [P] University Press of Kentucky / February 24, 2017 0.5" H x 8.4" L x 5.4" W (0.5 lbs) 176 pages

Blackberries, Blackberries /// Crystal Wilkinson with foreword by Nikky Finney and afterword by Honorée Jeffers

Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire“The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist“Shire is the real thing—fresh, cutting, indisputably alive.”—Dwight Garner, The New York TimesMama, I made it / out of your home / alive, raised by / the voices / in my head.With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls. In Shire’s hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life, full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life, full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl. The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed. BIO Warsan Shire is a Somali British writer and poet born in Nairobi and raised in London. She has written two chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth and Her Blue Body. She was awarded the inaugural Brunel International African Poetry Prize and served as the first Young Poet Laureate of London. She is the youngest member of the Royal Society of Literature and is included in the Penguin Modern Poets series. Shire wrote the poetry for the Peabody Award–winning visual album Lemonade and the Disney film Black Is King in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising, highlighting the voices and faces of Somali girls in Africa’s largest refugee camp. Warsan Shire lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is her full-length debut poetry collection. REVIEWS “It is not overstatement to say Shire writes the way Nina Simone sang. All the brilliance of her lean, monumental Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth is magnified in this remarkable new book.” —Terrance Hayes, author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin “Heartbreaking, full-bodied, and luscious . . . If someone from another planet wanted to know what it was like for a woman to survive on earth, they should read this book!” —Pascale Petit, author of Tiger Girl “Warsan Shire’s exquisite, memorable, and finely tuned poems articulate a depth of experience that never fails to surprise and profoundly move me, as she so powerfully gives voice to the unspoken.” —Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other [P] Random House Trade / March 01, 2022 0.5" H x 8.8" L x 5.4" W (0.28 lbs) 96 pages

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems /// Warsan Shire

In minute-by-minute detail, Patricia Smith tracks Hurricane Katrina as it transforms into a full-blown mistress of destruction. From August 23, 2005, the day Tropical Depression Twelve developed, through August 28 when it became a Category Five storm with its "scarlet glare fixed on the trembling crescent," to the heartbreaking aftermath, these poems evoke the horror that unfolded in New Orleans as America watched it on television. Assuming the voices of flailing politicians, the dying, their survivors, and the voice of the hurricane itself, Smith follows the woefully inadequate relief effort and stands witness to families held captive on rooftops and in the Superdome. She gives voice to the thirty-four nursing home residents who drowned in St. Bernard Parish and recalls the day after their deaths when George W. Bush accompanied country singer Mark Willis on guitar: The cowboy grins through the terrible din,***And in the Ninth, a choking woman wailsLook like this country done left us for dead. An unforgettable reminder that poetry can still be "news that stays news," Blood Dazzler is a necessary step toward national healing. BIO Patricia Smith is the author of four previous collections of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. A record-setting, national poetry slam champion, she was featured in the film Slamnation, on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam, and is a frequent contributor to Harriet, the Poetry Foundation's blog. Visit her website at www.wordwoman.ws. REVIEWS "Out of the maelstrom of the Slam, Patricia Smith conjures a harsh and elegant poetry in Blood Dazzler. Readers suspicious of her performance pedigree will note the formal ingenuity, whether sonnet, tanka, or collage. At the same time, the audience who prefers the live mic will be seized by the power of her voices, including that of Katrina 'in full tantrum.' From a confluence of poetic sensibilities, in a hot political wind, Smith rises above mere topicality to address timeless concerns." --National Book Award judges' citation"Hurricane Katrina has receded from the national news, but the destruction it wrought has found testimony in literature. Patricia Smith's fierce, blood-in-the-mouth collection of poems, a finalist for the National Book Award, grows out of this disaster and already has the whiff and feel of folklore." --John Freeman, NPR "[Smith] brings the effects of Katrina right up to the reader's nose and blows the sweetest and most sour music towards our hearts. To read these poems and not be affected is impossible. You will be seared by the grit and spirit of these people, the landscape, and the true force of nature." --Feminist Review Coffee House Press / September 01, 2008 0.3" H x 8.9" L x 5.8" W (0.35 lbs) 77 pages

Blood Dazzler /// Patricia Smith

Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Ama Codjoe’s highly anticipated debut collection brings generous light to the inner dialogues of women as they bathe, create art, make and lose love. Each poem rises with the urgency of a fully awakened sensual life. Codjoe’s poems explore how the archetype of the artist complicates the typical expectations of women: be gazed upon, be silent, be selfless, reproduce. Dialoguing with and through art, Bluest Nude considers alternative ways of holding and constructing the self. From Lorna Simpson to Gwendolyn Brooks to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, contemporary and ancestral artists populate Bluest Nude in a choreography of Codjoe’s making. Precise and halting, this finely wrought, riveting collection is marked by an acute rendering of highly charged emotional spaces. Purposefully shifting between the role of artist and subject, seer and seen, Codjoe’s poems ask what the act of looking does to a person—public looking, private looking, and that most intimate, singular spectacle of looking at one’s self. What does it mean to see while being seen? In poems that illuminate the tension between the possibilities of openness and its impediments, Bluest Nude offers vulnerability as a medium to be immersed in and, ultimately, shared as a kind of power: “There are as many walls inside me / as there are bones at the bottom of the sea,” Codjoe writes in the masterful titular poem. “I want to be seen clearly or not at all.” BIO Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude. She is also the author of Blood of the Air, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her honors include a 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, and a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship. Codjoe’s work has twice appeared in The Best American Poetry. She lives in New York City. REVIEWS "How beautifully seen, tended, and rendered are our many Black lives under this poet’s exquisite gaze. . .Bluest Nude is an ecstatic encounter." -- Tracy K. Smith “In this frequently gripping debut, Codjoe offers precisely crafted poems dealing with desire, memory, art, and ancestry.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred review “Fiercely intelligent and both emotionally and formally rich.” -- Library Journal "The hotly burning poems in Codjoe’s debut collection collapse themes of color and body into a lyrical supernova.” -- Booklist, starred review "Bluest Nude is a heady mix of ekphrastic and archival poems…Codjoe conjures the unmistakable textures of Black Americana." -- Layla Benitez-James, Poetry Foundation [P] Milkweed Editions / September 13, 2022 0.5" H x 8.4" L x 5.9" W (0.4 lbs) 120 pages

Bluest Nude: Poems /// Ama Codjoe

“Kevin Powell returns with a poetic time capsule written with love in honor of his mother’s evolution. Powell investigates the nature of our country’s oppression through the generational wounds survived and passed on. These poems are a testament to the healing work of Kevin Powell, as they revel in the power of forgiveness, abundance, and lineage.” —Mahogany L. Browne, Lincoln Center’s inaugural poet in residence and author of Vinyl MoonWhen Kevin Powell’s elderly mother became ill, he returned home every week to take her grocery shopping in Jersey City. Walking behind her during those trips, Powell began to hear her voice, stories, and language in a new way—examining his own healing while praying for hers.Grocery Shopping with My Mother originated as social media posts about these visits and evolved into a breathtaking collection of thirty-two new poems, crafted like an album, plus four bonus tracks celebrating a great love of wordplay. Culturally rooted in the literary traditions of Ntozake Shange and Allen Ginsberg, Powell’s poems honor the likes of V (formerly Eve Ensler), bell hooks, and Sidney Poitier. Grocery Shopping with My Mother dives into the complexities of relationships and contemporary themes with honesty and vulnerability. Creatively and spiritually inspired by Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, Powell’s poems shift in form and style, from praise chants to reverential meditations to, most importantly, innovative hope. BIO Kevin Powell is a critically acclaimed writer, lecturer, and activist. He is the author or editor of five previous books and a major contributor to the New York Times bestseller Tupac Shakur. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. REVIEWS “What a distressing, tender joy to read the title poem of Kevin Powell’s confident and totally unselfconscious collection, only to discover that much of the book navigates similar themes of diaspora, colorism, loneliness, and the pitfalls of prioritizing survival over care.” -- J. Howard Rosier, Vulture“One of 15 Books by Black Authors to Read This Winter” -- Essence“A powerful poetry collection of poems that are riddled with themes of healing, empowerment, and raw emotion . . . Will leave you with a new perspective on love, injustice, and devotion to your people that will make your sorrows soothed and your soul uplifted.” -- The Poetry Question“Strikingly beautiful and heart-wrenching.” -- Chicago Review of Books“Kevin Powell’s forthcoming poetry collection started on social media and evolved into 32 new poems in conversation with Stevie Wonder, Sidney Poitier, bell hooks, and many more cultural icons. As he accompanies his elderly and ill mother on her weekly grocery trips in Jersey City, he hears her in a new way, and brings those stories to us in this innovative, poignant collection.” -- Eliza Smith, A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year“The personal and the political, the praiseworthy and the reprehensible mingle in smooth poems with a distinctive voice.” -- Shelf Awareness (starred review) [H] Soft Skull / December 06, 2022 0.9" H x 8.3" L x 5.6" W (0.75 lbs) 192 pages

Grocery Shopping with My Mother /// Kevin Powell

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so…illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing.” —The Washington Post“This book will change you!…A masterpiece.” —Jenna Bush Hager, The Today Show’s #ReadWithJennaShe felt their eyes, all those executioners…Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences. Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review). BIO Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx. REVIEWS NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: New York Times, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Goodreads, Elle, Oprah Daily, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, The Root, Essence, Salon, Seattle Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Huffington Post, WBUR’s “Here and Now”, The Week, Men’s Health, YahooLife, Sunset Magazine, Lit Hub, Book Riot, Tor.com, CrimeReads, The Everygirl, The Millions, Lit-Reactor, Our Culture, Republican American, Women’s Wear Daily, Daily Press, Columbia Daily Tribune, The Independent, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus*May Selection for The Today Show’s Read With Jenna Book Club**Roxane Gay’s May Selection for the Audacious Book Club**A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice*“This book will change you!…A masterpiece.” -- Jenna Bush Hager, The Today Show’s #ReadWithJenna“An act of protest…in a voice that belongs only to Adjei-Brenyah, who bends the lurid into the lyrical—pretty words about hideous deeds. Some of his best fight sentences sound as if Joe Rogan had fallen into a trance and assumed the diction and rhythms of Toni Morrison. If you recoil at that unholy fusion, that’s kind of the point; and the author keeps pulling off this shock, page after page…There’s more than a little George Saunders in these high jinks…The novel is a thorough display of authorial control…As the plot careers forward, Adjei-Brenyah uses footnotes as tethers between fiction and reality, reminding us that his gladiatorial farce is just a little tragicomic leap from an extant American horror…The society in which [these characters] live defines them by their worst deeds, but the writer of this novel refuses to.” -- New York Times Book Review“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so upsetting and illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing…So raw and tragic and primal is Chain-Gang All-Stars that despite its futuristic elements, it has the patina of some timeworn epic…Shockingly intimate and moving.” -- Washington Post“So shocking and moving that it might just wake us up.” -- Ron Charles, CBS’ Sunday Morning“Gladiator meets Mad Max at the penal colony in the brutal, world-building latest from Adjei-Brenyah” -- Entertainment Weekly“Chain-Gang All-Stars surpasses all expectations…Adjei-Brenyah’s acerbic vision lands like a lightning bolt of truth.” -- Esquire [H] Pantheon Books / May 02, 2023 1.5" H x 9.0" L x 6.3" W (1.55 lbs) 384 pages

Chain Gang All Stars /// Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah /// new

This powerful memoir from a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist features poetry, letters, recipes, and other personal artifacts that provide an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with. In an intimate and non-traditional (or "new-fashioned") memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents: from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967, to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love to each other, and for him. He explores his own relationships—his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife. Alexander attempts to deal with the unravelling of his marriage and the grief of his mother's recent passing while sharing the solace he found in learning how to perfect her famous fried chicken dish. With an open heart, Alexander weaves together memories of his past to try and understand his greatest love: his daughters.Full of heartfelt reminisces, family recipes, love poems, and personal letters, Why Fathers Cry at Night inspires bravery and vulnerability in every reader who has experienced the reckless passion, heartbreak, failure, and joy that define the whirlwind woes and wonders of love. BIO Kwame Alexander is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books, including his Newbery Medal-winning novel The Crossover and The Undefeated, winner of the Caldecott Medal and Newbery Honor. He is the founding editor of Versify, which aims to change the world one word at a time. REVIEWS "Written with candor, warmth, and heart-wrenching grace, Why Fathers Cry at Night is nothing short of a marvel, animating humanity’s most important questions: What does it mean to grieve, to have the courage to surrender, to find a home in this tumultuous world, and to learn to love again? With radiance and poetic precision, Kwame Alexander’s words will remind you of art’s infinite sustenance. As soon as I turned the last page, I started again. - - Adrienne Brodeur, author of the best-selling memoir Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me [H] Little Brown and Company / May 23, 2023 1.1" H x 9.4" L x 6.3" W (0.9 lbs) 240 pages

Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances /// Kwame Alexander /// new

Long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point in this sharp domestic comedy of manners, told brilliantly over the course of one day.What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion?The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distaste for Temi.On a seemingly normal day, Temi comes over to spend a lazy afternoon with the wife: drinking wine, eating snacks, and laughing caustically about the husband’s shortcomings. But when the husband comes home and a series of confessions are made, the wife’s two confidantes are suddenly forced to jockey for their positions, throwing everyone’s integrity into question—and their long-drawn-out territorial dance, carefully constructed over years, into utter chaos. Told in three taut, mesmerizing parts—the wife, the husband, the best friend—over the course of one day, The Three of Us is a subversively comical, wildly astute, and painfully compulsive triptych of domestic life that explores cultural truths, what it means to defy them, and the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to ourselves and the people we’re meant to love. BIO Ore Agbaje-Williams is a British Nigerian writer and book editor from London. The Three of Us is her first novel. [H] G.P. Putnam's Son's / May 16, 2023 0.9" H x 7.8" L x 5.2" W (0.6 lbs) 192 pages

The Three of Us /// Ore Agbaje-Williams /// new

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, them, Bustle, and The Millions Urgent, propulsive, and strikingly insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry. Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself—until she finds out she’s being replaced. Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles. Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life—and the flirtation of a former flame—but her life in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted—isn’t it? Intimate, witty, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space, and introduces a standout new writer. BIO Tembe Denton-Hurst (known on the internet as @tembae) is a book-obsessed beauty and culture writer and author. Currently, she works as a staff writer at New York magazine’s The Strategist, where she covers beauty, lifestyle, and books. When she’s not writing, Tembe can be found on her couch in Queens, where she lives with her partner and their two cats, Stella and Dakota. Homebodies is her debut novel. REVIEWS 'I saw so much of myself in Homebodies, and in Mickey’s utterly delicious and sometimes aching story. Mickey made me look back and love my young Black woman self, and I loved her so much for returning me to that place.” -- Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois “Homebodies is a modern marvel—Tembe Denton-Hurst’s prose is both intimate and hysterical, inflammatory and elegiac. You’ll root for Mickey as she takes on the world, questioning and searching its contours, weaving a story we can’t help but find our own worlds inside of. Denton-Hurst has written a warm, brilliant novel that’s stunning and poignant; Homebodies is wonderfully witty and full of empathy and entirely original.” -- Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot “Denton-Hurst dazzles with her stirring indictment of racism in media and its insidious effects on Mickey. . . Emotionally and politically resonant, this is not to be missed.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) 'Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel astutely captures what it's like to fight for yourself in a world that's stacked against you.' -- Harper's Bazaar [H] Harper / May 02, 2023 1.3" H x 9.1" L x 6.2" W (1.0 lbs) 320 pages

Homebodies /// Tembe Denton-Hurst /// new

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICKIn this twisty and electrifying debut novel, a young woman goes missing in Lagos, Nigeria, and her estranged auntie will stop at nothing to find the truth behind her disappearance. Perfect for fans of My Sister, the Serial Killer and The Last Thing He Told Me.Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a hand­some husband; a palatial house in the heart of glittering Lagos, Nigeria; and a glamorous group of friends. She left gloomy London and a troubled family past behind for sunny, moneyed Lagos, becoming part of the Nigerwives—a com­munity of foreign women married to Nigerian men.But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. As the investigation turns up nothing but dead ends, her auntie Claudine decides to take matters into her own hands. Armed with only a cell phone and a plane ticket to Nigeria, she digs into her niece’s life and uncov­ers a hidden side filled with dark secrets, isolation, and even violence. But the more she discovers about Nicole, the more Claudine’s own buried history threatens to come to light.An inventively told and keenly observant thriller where nothing is as it seems, The Nigerwife offers a razor-sharp look at the bonds of family, the echoing consequences of secrets, and whether we can ever truly outrun our past. BIO Vanessa Walters was born and raised in London and has a background in international journalism and playwriting and is a Tin House resident and a Millay Colony resident. She is the author of two previous YA books and The Nigerwife. She currently lives in Brooklyn. REVIEWS “A thrillingly suspenseful novel that reveals its riches, layers and secrets through effortlessly elegant prose, while exposing the imprisoning dynamics inside transactional relationships of patriarchal power. I was hooked right through to the shocking end.” -- Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other“The search for a missing woman, set against the backdrop of glamour and wealth, is utterly captivating. Lush, poignant and gripping with a killer ending to boot, The Nigerwife shows that sometimes the perfect life and the perfect marriage aren't exactly what they seem. Vanessa Walters is one to watch!” -- Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing“Dark secrets seethe beneath the glamorous lives of Nigeria’s uber rich. A propulsive and complex tale of passion and betrayal. Electrifying!” -- Liv Constantine, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish "The Nigerwife is a dazzling exploration of deceptions--both intimate and internet--that keep the everyday afloat, and the pages turning, despite the weight of our deepest secrets, regrets, and devotions. I raced through this sumptuous, suspenseful, and smartly-layered book, and gasped at its fearless, soul-baring end." -- Nancy Jooyoun Kim, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Story of Mina Lee [H] Atria Books / May 02, 2023 1.13" H x 9.28" L x 6.36" W (1.02 lbs) 320 pages

The Nigerwife /// Vanessa Walters /// new

Gemma Robinson’s helpfully annotated edition is the first Collected Poems of Martin Carter. The selected prose includes key essays on race, colonialism, political action and the role of the poet in a postcolonial society. BIO The Guyanese poet Martin Carter (1927-97) was one of the foremost Caribbean writers of the 20th century. Twice imprisoned by the colonial government of British Guiana during the Emergency in the 1950s, he became a minister in Guyana’s first independent government during the 60s, representing his country at the United Nations, but resigned in disillusionment after three years to live ‘simply as a poet, remaining with the people’. He was one of the first Caribbean poets to write about slavery, Amerindian history and Indian Indentureship in relation to contemporary concerns. Wise, angry and hopeful, Carter’s poetry voices a life lived in times of public and private crisis. REVIEWS 'The work in University of Hunger ranges from lyrics to arguments to riddles. Carter’s poetry, known by heart by his fellow Guyanese, deserves to live deep in global memory. Responsive to the white dust and red flowers of his homeland, for Carter the political is personal. Jailed for his part in the independence struggle, he foxed surveillance photographers by displaying poems on his home. Whether in tenderness for ‘green, green love’ or in furious search of a ‘comrade stargazer’, he desires a freedom that would write a "happier alphabet".' -- Vahni Capildeo, Reader's Digest ‘A major contribution to Guyanese scholarship. This sets the standard for editions of Caribbean poetry’ -- David Dabydeen ‘Carter has a stature in the collective consciousness of Guyana that is quite unique among writers in the English-speaking Caribbean…he will remain one of the greatest writers of that period…Carter will stand in the very first ranks of the writers of the Americas’ -- George Lamming ‘Martin Carter spans an enormous arc of experience from exuberant public statement to betrayed introspection’ -- E.A. Markham ‘His impulse was always lyrical, he was a great reciter, he had a great voice, he had a great joy in the sound of the poem…the example of his work was phenomenal…West Indian literature even in English is totally underestimated, totally. The literature is astonishing, the quality is astonishingly high. And Martin’s position in all this is special’ -- Derek Walcott 'But who is Martin Carter as a matter of inspiration, now? He is one of those poets you turn to throughout a lifetime. Watch the ruptures in experience he writes about. Feel anew the ruptures in your experience. Re-begin the process of poetry. Each time is another first.' -- Vahni Capildeo, Poetry Daily [P] Bloodaxe Books / March 30, 2006 0.86" H x 8.48" L x 5.54" W (1.08 lbs) 320 pages

University of Hunger: Collected Poems & Selected Prose /// Martin Carter

The first volume in an anthology series that amplifies the voices of unsung Black poets to paint a more robust picture of our national past, and of the Black literary imagination, with a foreword by Tracy K. SmithJoshua Bennett and Jesse McCarthy repeatedly found themselves struck by the number of exciting poets they came across in long-out-of-print collections and forgotten journals whose work has been neglected or entirely ignored, even by scholars of Black poetry. Minor Notes is an excavation initiative that recovers and curates archival materials from these understudied, though supremely gifted, African American poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and aims to bridge scholarly interest with the growing general audience who reads, writes, and circulates poetry within that tradition. As Minor Notes clarifies, the work of contemporary Black poets is perhaps best understood through the lens of a long-standing tradition of the poet as witness, as prophetic voice, as communal bard, and as scholar of the everyday and the miraculous. The poets featured in Volume 1 are George Moses Horton, Fenton Johnson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, David Wadsworth Cannon Jr., Anne Spencer, and Angelina Weld Grimké. BIO Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School (Penguin, 2016), which was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He is also the author of Being Property Once Myself (Harvard University Press, 2020), Owed (Penguin, 2020), The Study of Human Life (Penguin, 2022). He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. He is a Professor of English at Dartmouth College. Jesse McCarthy is Assistant Professor in the departments of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He has published articles and reviews in the journals transposition, NOVEL, and African American Review and contributed chapters to Richard Wright in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Ralph Ellison in Context (forthcoming) as well as a new introduction for Vincent O. Carter’s long out-of-print memoir The Bern Book (Dalkey Archive, 2020). He is also the author of Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? a collection of essays (Liveright, 2021) and a novel, The Fugitivities (Melville House, 2021). REVIEWS “You feel you’re meeting them on a human level. The book is slim and portable, as the best poetry books are (…) Bennett and McCarthy, in their introduction, set out their criteria for inclusion in ‘Minor Notes.’ They list things like ‘minimal appearance’ in anthologies and ‘very little, if anything, in the way of secondary literature focusing on their work.’ But it becomes plain that they chose these poets because they still speak across generations. This is a passion project.(…) This is a reclamation project that goes through you like a spear.” -- Dwight Garner, The New York Times “Joshua Bennett and Jesse McCarthy, both scholars of African American literature, aim to widen the canon of Black poetry by spotlighting poets who have been overlooked (…) giving readers an understanding of their unique voice and poetic concerns. (…) David Wadsworth Cannon Jr., Henrietta Cordelia Ray, Anne Spencer, and other poets interrogate everything from labor politics to friendship in finely wrought lyrics that delight and surprise, prompting the reader to wonder how these geniuses could have been sidelined for so long.” -- Poets & Writers“The first in a series recovering the out-of-print words of Black poets whose work shaped the 19th and 20th centuries, Minor Notes, Volume 1 draws a bright line between the creations of the past and those of today’s bards. Curated by Joshua Bennett and Jesse McCarthy, while featuring a foreword from former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, the book centers clear, resonant voices—like that of Angelina Weld Grimké’s, who ruminates joyfully on the beauty of living in a Black body.” -- Essence [P] Penguin Group / April 11, 2023 0.58" H x 7.7" L x 5.16" W (0.35 lbs) 208 pages

Minor Notes, Volume 1 /// edited by Joshua Bennett and Jesse McCarthy, foreword by Tracy K Smith

A powerful generational saga at once tender and suspenseful, overflowing with magic and common sense, this book "resonates with genuine excitement … a big, strong, admirable novel” (New York Times Book Review).On the island of Willow Springs, off the Georgia coast, the powers of healer Mama Day are tested by her great niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman endangered by the island's darker forces. BIO Gloria Naylor won the National Book Award for first fiction in 1983 for The Women of Brewster Place. Her subsequent novels include Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey’s Café. In addition to her novels, Naylor has written essays and screenplays, as well as the stage adaptation of Bailey’s Café. The Women of Brewster Place was made into a popular television miniseries starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, who is an ardent fan of the novel and its writer. Naylor has also founded One Way Productions, an independent film company, and is involved in a literacy program in the Bronx. A native New Yorker, Gloria Naylor received her B.A. in English from Brooklyn College and her M.A. in Afro-American Studies from Yale University. She has been distinguished with numerous honors, including Scholar-in-Residence, the University of Pennsylvania; Senior Fellow, The Society for the Humanities, Cornell University; the President’s Medal, Brooklyn College; and Visiting Professor, University of Kent, Canterbury, England. Naylor is the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for her novels and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for screenwriting. REVIEWS WINNER OF THE LILLIAN SMITH BOOK AWARD"Resonates with genuine excitement … a big, strong, admirable novel." -- New York Times Book Review [P] Vintage / April 23, 1989 0.8" H x 7.9" L x 5.1" W (0.55 lbs) 336 pages

Mama Day /// Gloria Naylor

Alison Mills Newman’s novel Francisco—“profoundly underappreciated” (NY Times)—has long been out of print and impossible to find. Written in her early twenties in a “fluently funky mix of standard and nonstandard English” (Harryette Mullen), Mills Newman tells the vibrant story of a young black woman’s love affair with an indie filmmaker, Francisco. Described as “a portrait of the artist as a young black woman trying to find a way back to herself” in the new foreword by Saidiya Hartman, Francisco unfolds like an on-the-road diary of a young actress and musician as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with success in Hollywood. She chronicles her bohemian life with her filmmaker lover, visiting friends and family up and down California, and her involvement in the 1970s Black Arts movement. Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Melvin Van Peebles, Frank Silvera, and Amiri Baraka make appearances, along with other artists and writers like Ishmael Reed and Joe Overstreet. Love and friendship, long revealing conversations, parties and dancing in Berkeley and LA—Francisco celebrates “the workins of a positive alive life that is good value, quality, carin, truth . . . the gift of art for the survival of the human heart." BIO Alison Mills Newman started her career as the first African American teenage actress on a television series (Julia). As a musician and vocalist she has performed with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Weather Report, and Taj Mahal. She is an award-winning film director and the author of the novel Maggie 3. Mills Newman is the president of Keep the Faith Film Ministries, a chaplain at Fulton County Jail, and has five beautiful children with the late Francisco Toscono Newman, as well as ten grandchildren. REVIEWS The book makes space for rumination, complexity, and transience. It offers a unique window into the mind of one woman, at one moment in history, and by doing so examines beauty, sex, and art through her eyes. Once you get into the flow of Newman’s prose, you’ll find artistic and intellectual riches -- Kirkus Reviews The sentences brim with rebellion and pleasure, creating a sensual odyssey of self-discovery and experience. … This delightfully smart and funny protagonist is a reminder of the difficulty and beauty of a life lived on its own terms. -- Alyssa Songsiridej, The New York Times Mills Newman has done the rare thing: written with beauty, power, and purity about a woman. -- Toni Morrison This brilliant, long out-of-print novel was rescued by (who else?) New Directions…snappy asides and transitions appear as enjambments — pushing the pace forward like the ding of a typewriter carriage. The sensuousness is the point. This latest edition of Francisco gives a new generation of readers the opportunity to think about how little has changed in the culture industry’s relationship of convenience with Black artists. -- Justin Rosier, Vulture [P] New Directions Publishing Corporation / March 07, 2023 0.5" H x 7.9" L x 5.1" W (0.4 lbs) 128 pages

Francisco /// Alison Mills Newman, contribution by Sadiya Hartman

“Musical in structure—the octaves rise when the music calls for it; truths are revealed by the invisible beats of this gorgeous, rich story” –Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful (Oprah’s Book Club Pick)“Riveting, rhythmic, transcendent…a stellar family saga.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the BoneNamed a Most Anticipated Book by Time ∙ Essence ∙ Real Simple ∙ Good Housekeeping ∙ Atlanta-Journal Constitution ∙ The Root ∙ SheReads ∙ Atlanta Magazine ∙ Zibby Mag A father’s sudden disappearance exposes the private fears, dreams, longings, and joys of a Black American family in the late decades of the twentieth century, in this page-turning and intimate new novel from the author of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls.It’s a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his thirty-seventh birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together. But he won’t make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He’s about to disappear. In the days, months, and years to follow, Deborah and Trinity look backward and forward as they piece together the life of the man they love, but whom they come to realize they might never have truly known. In a gripping narrative that moves from the Great Migration to 1970s Detroit and 1990s New York, we follow the hopes, triumphs, losses, and secrets that build up and tear apart an American family. BIO Anissa Gray is the author of the novel The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. She is also an award-winning journalist whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, CNN, and The Cut. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. REVIEWS “This novel wields themes of generational trauma, class and race as pickaxes, excavating a Black family’s history and making room for the future to bloom.” -- Essence“Riveting, rhythmic, transcendent, Life and Other Love Songs is a stellar family saga. Anissa Gray is a writer to watch.” -- Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone“Life and Other Love Songs builds beautifully—we care about these characters while coming to understand that the ground beneath their feet is constructed of secrets. Anissa Gray’s novel feels musical in structure—the octaves rise when the music calls for it; truths are revealed by the invisible beats of this gorgeous, rich story.”-- Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward and Oprah Book Club Pick Hello Beautiful“Anissa Gray’s Life and Other Love Songs is one of those rare novels that pulled me out of my life for a few days. The characters are real, vivid, complex – as in life. It’s a story that explores the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into hope.”-- Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes“Cleverly structured and emotionally precise, Love and Other Love Songs is a powerhouse ballad about a family whose histories—shared and individual—will pierce straight to the heart. With empathy and insight, Anissa Gray writes an expertly crafted family drama perfect for fans of Celeste Ng.” -- Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author The Last Romantics [H] Berkley Books / April 11, 2023 1.19" H x 9.25" L x 6.39" W (1.14 lbs) 336 pages

Life and Other Love Songs /// Anissa Gray /// new

A witty take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet where the only death is the patriarchy. Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, James Ijames' Fat Ham reinvents Shakespeare's masterpiece in startling and hilarious ways amidst the backdrop of a family barbecue in the American South. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma, violence, and toxic masculinity in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a vibrant and compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy. BIO James Ijames' plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre (Philadelphia, PA), The National Black Theatre (NYC), Definition Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago IL) Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA) and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwright's Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theater, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre and Victory Garden.James is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and he has two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play for "Superior Donuts" and "Angels in America" and two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play for "The Brothers Size" with Simpatico Theatre Company and "Gem of the Ocean" with Arden Theatre. James is a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrance McNally New Play Award for "WHITE," the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for "....Miz Martha," a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, a 2019 Kesselring Prize for "Kill Move Paradise" and a 2020 Steinberg Prize.James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective.He received a B.A. in drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and a M.F.A. in acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and a co-artistic of the Wilma Theater. He resides in South Philadelphia. REVIEWS The ghost of Juicy’s dad haunts him and asks for revenge – on Juicy’s uncle, who has now married his widowed mom. Sound familiar? Yes, but… Fat Ham is a filmed production of an exciting new play by Wilma Co-Artistic Director James Ijames (Kill Move Paradise). It centers a Black, queer discovery of self, softness, and resilience … at a cookout in the South. -- the Wilma Theater Critically-acclaimed playwright James Ijames reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece with his new drama, Fat Ham. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy. Fat Ham is a delectable comic tragedy directed by The Public’s Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali. -- the Public Theater [P] Theatre Communications Group / June 13, 2023 112 pages

Fat Ham /// James Ijames /// pre

“A remarkable feat of literary conjuration.” —Jennifer Haigh, nationally bestselling author of Mercy StreetThe acclaimed author of The Serpent’s Gift returns with this gripping and powerful novel of healing, redemption, and love, following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children.My name is Ranita, and I’m an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart, she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival.Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she’s leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life.Perfect for fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi, Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss, healing, redemption, and strength. In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman’s determination to tell her story. BIO Helen Elaine Lee grew up in Detroit, Michigan and she is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Her first novel, The Serpent's Gift, was published by Atheneum and her second novel, Water Marked, was published by Scribner. Helen was on the board of PEN New England for 10 years, and she served on its Freedom to Write Committee and volunteered with its Prison Creative Writing Program, which she helped to start. She is Professor of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT. REVIEWS “Like the pomegranate of the title…filled with unexpected treasures. Lee has created a powerful, beautifully written story of a woman who painfully confronts her past to build her future.” -- Booklist (starred review) “Lee’s handling of trauma is deft, and her portrayal of the carceral system’s cruelty is unflinching and empathetic…a cache of jewels.” -- Kirkus Reviews “With a light, poetic touch, Lee balances the painful details of Ranita’s reality with genuine, persistent hope for new beginnings. It’s irresistible.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Helen Elaine Lee has brought such a deep and beautiful world of people to the page, I found myself already missing them even as I continued to read. In their survival, we find ours and are left grateful, different, better.” -- Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone “Pomegranate feels like something new: a humane, closely observed account of a Black woman—a recovering addict, a mother who’s lost custody of her children—emerging from prison, working to stay clean, reconnect with her family, and come to terms with her complicated past. This moving and panoramic novel starts off as a character study and evolves into a big-hearted story of redemption.” -- Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can’t Win and Mrs. Fletcher [H] Atria Books / April 11, 2023 1.28" H x 9.27" L x 6.38" W (1.1 lbs) 352 pages

Pomegranate /// Helen Elaine Lee

“Mothers never die. Children love to resurrect us in they stories.”Folktales and spirits animate this lively and unforgettable coming-of-age tale of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters in Brooklyn grappling with their mother’s illness, their father’s infidelity, and the truth of their family’s pastSisters Zora and Sasha Porter are drifting apart. Bearing witness to their father’s violence and their mother’s worsening illness, an unsettled Zora escapes into her journal, dreaming of being a writer, while Sasha discovers sex and chest binding, spending more time with her new girlfriend than at home.But the sisters, like their parents, must come together to answer to something more ancient and powerful than they know—and reckon with a family secret buried in the past. A tale told from the perspective of a mischievous narrator, featuring the Rolling Calf who haunts butchers, Mama Dglo who lives in the ocean, a vain tiger, and an outsmarted snake, The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts is set in a world as alive and unpredictable as Helen Oyeyemi’s.Telling of the love between sisters who don’t always see eye to eye, this extraordinary debut novel is a celebration of the power of stories, asking, What happens to us when our stories are erased? Do we disappear? Or do we come back haunting? BIO Soraya Palmer was born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NYC with roots in Trinidad and Jamaica. She works in Youth Organizing and holds a BA in Africana Studies an M.F.A. in Fiction. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Callaloo, Black Warrior Review, and Calyx. This is her first novel. REVIEWS Ms., A Most Anticipated Title of the YearOne of Electric Literature‘s Books by Women of Color to Read This YearThe Week, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023Goodreads, A Buzziest Debut Novel of the Year“What happens to stories that are born of another land? When they migrate multiple times and across multiple generations? Soraya Palmer’s ambitious and passionate debut, The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts, is a thoughtful exploration of these questions . . . This is a book written with the gods of storytelling in mind; it highlights what stories can do—that it’s not just the stories that evolve with each telling, but we ourselves who are rearranged too.” -- Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The New York Times Book Review“One of the Best New Books to Read in 2023.” -- Today“The long and winding name of this assertive debut matches the magnitude of the stories within, which draw on folklore to capture the dynamic between two sisters, Zora and Sasha Porter. Their mother’s illness and their father’s violence has fractured their relationship, but their bond is reforged as an old family secret—and a surrounding cache of remarkable tales—roars to the surface.” -- Elle, A Most Anticipated Title of the Year [H] Catapult / March 28, 2023 1.07" H x 9.26" L x 6.37" W (1.22 lbs) 288 pages

The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts /// Soraya Palmer

“What a beautiful, haunting and hued narrative of American living. I’m in love with this story and the way Tyriek White breathes life into these characters.” —Jacqueline Woodson, MacArthur Fellow and author of Another Brooklyn“This novel is so New York—so, so New York—yet so deeply southern on lower frequencies. It’s astonishing.” —Kiese Laymon, MacArthur Fellow and author of Long DivisionA poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losing the public housing apartment they once shared. Colly, Key’s grieving son, soon learns that he too has inherited this sacred gift and begins to slip into the liminal space between the living and the dead on his journey to self-realization.In the present, an expulsion from school forces Colly across town where, feeling increasingly detached and disenchanted with the condition of his community, he begins to realize that he must, ultimately, be accountable to the place he is from. After college, having forged an understanding of friendship, kinship, community, and how to foster love in places where it seems impossible, Colly returns to East New York to work toward addressing structural neglect and the crumbling blocks of New York City public housing he was born to; discovering a collective path forward from the wreckages of the past. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise. BIO Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, where he served at-risk and marginalized youth, artists, and scholars in the classroom. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Lit, a literary foundation which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop and the New York State Writer's Institute, among other honors. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College, and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi. REVIEWS “We Are a Haunting is a beautiful and poetic journey through the rotting foundations, crumbling ceilings, and tucked away corners of a city. It’s also a moving, time-skipping portrait of a family from the ancestors to a doula-in-training to her latchkey son. It’s about how the past will always be with us whether it’s literal spirits or a ten-year-old public housing work order.” -- Matt Stowe, Greenlight Bookstore“A super lyrical urban family story—such perfect NYC scenes and commentary—Tyriek sees with crystal clear vision and is able to bring the audience into his world.” -- Kira Wizner, Merritt Bookstore“There is a sadness that haunts this well-written and poetic debut novel by Tyriek White. This is a narrative that grabs you, never lets go, and forces you to reckon with the saga of the family at the novel’s center.” -- Bennard Fajardo, Politics and Prose“If you read the prologue to Tyriek White’s We Are a Haunting, you’ll wonder if he can keep up the heart-aching beauty of his prose. Spoiler alert: he does. The book is haunting indeed, focused on a family gifted with the ability to hear from ghosts as they deal with the realness of life in New York City and beyond. This is a debut, so I’m excited to see what else Tyriek White will bring us in the future.” -- Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Woman, in Zibby Mag“[We Are a Haunting’s] wide-ranging, multivocal, quick-shifting style—which incorporates frequent allusions to literature and visual art, brand names and the neighborhood prestige attached to them, and a mixtape element—serves admirably to emphasize the book’s ambition, which is to capture and to celebrate not just these characters, this family, but the community and the city they emerge from, serve, and love. An intelligent, gritty, discursive group portrait of working-class New York from the 1980s to now.” -- Kirkus Reviews [H] Astra House / April 25, 2023 1.1" H x 9.1" L x 6.2" W (0.9 lbs) 272 pages

We Are a Haunting /// Tyriek White /// new

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ELLE AND VULTUREThe widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroadsIn the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life. BIO Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is the 2022-2023 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. REVIEWS “Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth’s promise, of the quest to find one’s tribe and one’s calling.” -- Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily“[An] intense, finely tuned book. Taylor is an inimitable talent.” -- Elle“Brandon Taylor’s third book is the most dazzling example of his sharp pen and keen observations of human nature yet. . . . Taylor develops his characters so precisely, they feel like close friends: recognizable, sometimes infuriating, and always worth following to the book’s last page.” -- Harper’s Bazaar“Provocative . . . Through Taylor’s signature intimacy, we see casual emotional devastation, prickly social interactions, and wry humor with keen clarity.” -- Vulture“A stunning work of fiction, with characters that are unforgettable and writing that is frequently breathtaking. I can’t shout its praises enough.” -- David Vogel, Buzzfeed “Anyone who’s ever struggled to find themselves while so many around them are doing the same (hello, everyone’s early 20s) will find kinship in this novel.” -- Good Housekeeping [H] Riverhead Books / May 23, 2023 320 pages

The Late Americans /// Brandan Taylor /// new

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.“Propulsive . . . LaValle combines chills with deep insights into our country’s divides.”—Los Angeles TimesONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The New York Times, Time, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Essence, Salon, Vulture, Reader’s Digest, The Root, LitHub, Paste, PopSugar, Chicago Review of Books, BookPage, Book Riot, Tordotcom, Crime Reads, Kirkus ReviewsAdelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it. BIO Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction: three novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University. REVIEWS “Enthralling . . . The combination of LaValle’s agile prose, the velocity of the narrative and the pleasure of upended expectations makes this book almost impossible to put down . . . Lone Women deftly weaves history, horror, suspense and the perspectives of those rarely recorded in the West.” -- The New York Times“LaValle gets coy in Lone Women, teasing us by trickling details that gradually reveal Adelaide’s intricate connection to the creature. Meanwhile, he adroitly intertwines the eerie fairy tale with early 20th-century historical realism . . .” -- The Washington Post“A blend of historical fiction and horror that you won’t be able to put down.” -- The RootHold your breath as you read, but LaValle has built a brutal and compelling portrait of early-twentieth-century America that may just keep you up at night.”-- Chicago Review of Books“In his new book, Lone Women, author Victor LaValle transports readers to the desolate plains of 1915 Montana . . . though it’s set more than a century ago, this eerie story of a haunted would-be homesteader cobbling together a life she doesn’t want to escape from feels both prescient and modern.” -- ESSENCE [H] One World / March 28, 2023 1.2" H x 9.3" L x 6.4" W (1.1 lbs) 304 pages

Lone Women /// Victor Lavalle /// new

A stunning, contemporary Black southern gothic novel about what it means to be a poor woman in the God- fearing south. Perfect for readers of Mexican Gothic and Luster“Every page, every scene, every sentence of Monica Brashears’s debut novel House of Cotton dazzles and surprises. An intense, enthralling, and deeply satisfying read!” -- Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies"A new, dazzling, and essential American voice." -- George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the BardoMagnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very last page. BIO Monica Brashears is an Affrilachian writer from Tennessee. She is a graduate of Syracuse University's MFA program. Her work has appeared in Nashville Review, Split Lip Magazine, Appalachian Review, The Masters Review, and more. House of Cotton is her first novel. REVIEWS A Most Anticipated Book of 2023: Book Riot, Debutiful, CrimeReads, and more!“A beautiful book about the strange contours of grief.” -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster, winner of the NBCC John Leonard Prize"Monica Brashears is a stunning new talent. Her debut, House of Cotton, is an incredible work of harsh beauty and a novel you won't forget." -- Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black"Monica Brashears is an immense talent, and her enchanting, strikingly original prose will astonish you. Magnolia is such a vivid, tender character: whip smart but deeply innocent, traumatized but also joyful and funny. Magnolia’s complex voice is nothing short of miraculous. House of Cotton is a powerful, seductive, and subversive novel." -- Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document, winner of the Rosenthal Foundation Award"Mystical, carnal, and written in fire. House of Cotton ushers Monica Brashears straight onto American lit’s mainstage, which she should grace for a long time.” -- Jonathan Dee, author of The Privileges, winner of the Prix Fitzgerald"Brashears offers a fresh new perspective on Appalachia and the American South, and Magnolia's rich voice will echo with readers long after the pages are closed." --Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness"Startling, vivid, and impressive...Brashears has written a lush, pictorial, and often steamy novel with an indelible heroine. Coupling classic gothic elements with a realistic portrayal of the issues facing a young, poor, Black woman with few options, the novel’s many strengths culminate in a powerful and original story that will appeal to a variety of readers across fiction genres." -- Booklist"[A] haunting and macabre debut... Magnolia is a wonderfully complex character." -- Publishers Weekly"A lyrical fever dream of a novel." -- Kirkus [H] Flatiron Books / April 04, 2023 1.3" H x 9.3" L x 6.5" W (1.05 lbs) 304 pages

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