The Man Who Cried I Am: A Novel
by John A. Williams
Library of America, 2023
[Publication date: November 7, 2023]
Rediscover the sensational 1967 literary thriller that captures the bitter struggles of postwar Black intellectuals and artists
With
a foreword by Ishmael Reed and a new introduction by Merve Emre about
how this explosive novel laid bare America's racial fault lines
Max
Reddick, a novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter, has
spent his career struggling against the riptide of race in America. Now
terminally ill, he has nothing left to lose. An expat for many years,
Max returns to Europe one last time to settle an old debt with his
estranged Dutch wife, Margrit, and to attend the Paris funeral of his
friend, rival, and mentor Harry Ames, a character loosely modelled on
Richard Wright.
In Amsterdam, among Harry’s papers, Max uncovers
explosive secret government documents outlining “King Alfred,” a plan to
be implemented in the event of widespread racial unrest and aiming “to
terminate, once and for all, the Minority threat to the whole of the
American society.” Realizing that Harry has been assassinated, Max must
risk everything to get the documents to the one man who can help.
Greeted as a masterpiece when it was published in 1967, The Man Who Cried I Am
stakes out a range of experience rarely seen in American fiction: from
the life of a Black GI to the ferment of postcolonial Africa to an
insider’s view of Washington politics in the era of segregation and the
Civil Rights Movement, including fictionalized portraits of Martin
Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. John A. Williams and his lost classic
are overdue for rediscovery.
Few novels have so deliberately blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality as The Man Who Cried I Am (1967),
and many of its early readers assumed the King Alfred plan was real. In
her introduction, Merve Emre examines the gonzo marketing plan behind
the novel that fueled this confusion and prompted an FBI investigation.
This deluxe paperback also includes a new foreword by novelist Ishmael
Reed.
“It is a blockbuster, a hydrogen bomb . . . . This is a
book white people are not ready to read yet, neither are most black
people who read. But [it] is the milestone produced since Native Son. Besides which, and where I should begin, it is a damn beautifully written book.” —Chester Himes
“Magnificent . . . obviously in the Baldwin and Ellison class.” —John Fowles
“If The Man Who Cried I Am
were a painting it would be done by Brueghel or Bosch. The madness and
the dance is never-ending display of humanity trying to creep past
inevitable Fate.” —Walter Mosely
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John Alfred Williams (1925–2015) was an African American author, journalist, and professor of English at Rutgers University. He won the American Book Awards Lifetime Achievement award in 2011. Born born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1925. He earned a degree in English and Journalism from Syracuse University in 1950 (after service in the navy). After the publication of his first novel The Angry Ones in 1960 John A. Williams went on to have a distinguished literary career, including the publication of his second novel Sissie, and the classic 1967 bestseller, The Man Who Cried I Am.
Williams professional career included teaching at the College of the Virgin Islands, the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College and was a professor of English at Rutgers University of the Virgin Islands, the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College and he was a professor of English at Rutgers University.
Williams received the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement. He is also a member of the Nation Institute of Arts and Letters. Williams also won the 1998 American Book Award for Safari West. Williams was the author of 21 fiction and non-fiction books.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Max
paused a long moment before pulling the cord that opened the gate. He
glanced behind him at the house; Michelle was at a window, watching. A
white spot. He couldn’t even tell now the color of her hair. He thought,
S’long, Red. He pulled the cord and the gate swung open. He stepped
into the street, pulling the door closed after him and leaning back
against it automatically, to make sure it was firmly locked. He looked
up and down. The street was quiet, almost empty. He scuttled across the
walk, heart pounding, and hurriedly unlocked the car door. Inside, he
relocked it and, flinching from the pain of the sudden sitting, groaned.
His fingers were groping under the seat for the Llama. Where was it?
Stiff, eager fingers ploughed into car-floor dirt; his heart threatened
to tear through his rib cage. Where—? But now his fingers touched heavy
metal with hard precise lines, and he pulled the gun out, breathing with
relief. He pulled the clip halfway out. Still loaded. A small gun, but
that’s what everyone got killed with in New York. Twenty-two’s. A .25
would hurt only a little bit more. He put the gun in his pocket, checked
the doors again and placed the case on the other seat. He started down
the street and sped quickly through the city, so occupied with watching
behind him that he squirted through two red lights. When he gained the
main road he shifted into fourth. Better, he thought. That’s better.
With the coming of the gray clouds the temperature had dropped slightly
and the wind had come up. He felt it tearing at the car. He drove
rapidly. A big, black Mercedes rushed up behind him, blinked its lights
and then howled past. Max noticed the black-on-white plates. The big “D”
to one side. Deutschland.
The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture
by Courtney Thorsson
Columbia University Press, 2023
[Publication date: November 7, 2023]
One
Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake
Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan’s
Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their
work. Calling themselves “The Sisterhood,” the group―which also came to
include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others―would
get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital
space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.
The Sisterhood
tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American
writing and cultural institutions. Drawing on original interviews with
Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and
readings of their works, Courtney Thorsson explores the group’s everyday
collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black
women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence,
and eventually in academic departments as well―often in the face of
sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal,
professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well
as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and
critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy
absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers
built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing,
networking, and community building that nurtured Black women’s writing,
this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for
Black feminist collaboration.
REVIEWS:
One of the "Most Anticipated" Books of 2023 ― The Millions
One of "30 books we can’t wait to read this fall" ― Los Angeles Times
A "Must-Read Book" of Fall 2023 ― Town & Country Magazine
An LJ Review Editors' Fall Pick ― Library Journal
Starting
with a photograph, Courtney Thorsson brings her all to this luminous
work about The Sisterhood, a group of Black women writers who met
informally in the 1970s. Together they transformed American literature
and helped to shape generations of writers, visual artists, filmmakers,
and scholars. This is a profoundly important story, and it has found an
astute and sensitive author in Thorsson. -- Farah Jasmine Griffin,
author of In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photograph that inspired Courtney Thorsson’s immensely perceptive The Sisterhood
should be valued in the millions. The Black women who made up The
Sisterhood represented the greatest creative minds of the last half
century. Today we see them as literary ‘Super Friends,’ but back in 1977
many were struggling artists whose friendship, generosity, and support
for one another enabled them all to fly. And the literary, cultural,
political, and academic worlds we now inhabit are better for it. --
Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
Proceeding
from an archive of one iconic photograph of The Sisterhood, 1977,
Courtney Thorsson has pieced together the story of how Black women
writers, in intimate and collaborative gatherings throughout New York in
the 1970s, created literary history. It is an indispensable,
fascinating, and original history and one that might have been lost
without Thorsson’s loving and meticulous archival work. -- Mary Helen
Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s
The Sisterhood offers
an indispensable history of Black women’s writing and organizing.
Thorsson’s painstakingly researched story of The Sisterhoodreaches
far beyond the now-famous 1977 photo on the book's cover. In these
tenderly written pages, Thorsson reveals an entire history of
contemporary Black feminism and the writers, editors, organizers, and
dreamers who shepherded it. This is an essential contribution to Black
feminist thought and American literary history. -- Erica R. Edwards,
author of The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of US Empire
Richly detailed . . . A well-documented contribution to Black literary history. ― Kirkus Reviews
A scintillating snapshot of a significant moment in American literature. ― Publishers Weekly
A
fascinating, empowering look at how Black women writers collaborated to
move their own needle in the publishing industry and academia. ― Library Journal
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Courtney Thorsson is an associate professor of English at the University of Oregon and the author of Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women’s Novels
(2013). She is the recipient of a Public Scholars Award from the
National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the research and
writing of this book.
Sing a Black Girl's Song: The Unpublished Work of Ntozake Shange
by Ntozake Shange
(Edited by Imani Perry)
Legacy Lit, 2023
[Publication date: September 12, 2023]
GMA’s 15 Spectacular New Books to Read in September
Ms. Magazine’s September 2023 Reads for the Rest of Us
The Millions “Most Anticipated” Books of 2023
LitHub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Never-before-seen
unpublished works by award-winning American literary icon Ntozake
Shange, featuring essays, plays, and poems from the archives of the
seminal Black feminist writer who stands alongside giants like Toni
Morrison and Alice Walker, curated by National Book Award winner Imani
Perry with a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Tarana Burke.
In the late ’60s, Ntozake Shange was a student at Barnard
College discovering her budding talent as a writer, publishing in her
school’s literary journal, and finding her unique voice. By the time she
left us in 2018, Shange had scorched blazing trails across countless
pages and stages, redefining genre and form as we know them, each verse,
dance, and song a love letter to Black women and girls, and the
community at large.
Sing a Black Girl’s Song is
a new posthumous collection of Shange’s unpublished poems, essays, and
plays from throughout the life of the seminal Black feminist writer. In
these pages we meet young Shange, learn the moments that inspired for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf…, travel with an eclectic family of musicians, sit on “The Couch” opposite Shange’s therapist, and discover plays written after for colored girls’ international success. Sing a Black Girl’s Song houses,
in their original form, the literary rebel’s politically charged verses
from the Black Arts Movement era alongside her signature tender rhythm
and cadence that capture the minutia and nuance of Black life. Sing a Black Girl’s Song is
the continuation of a literary tradition that has bolstered generations
of writers and a long-lasting gift from one of the fiercest and most
highly celebrated artists of our time.
REVIEWS:
"Previously
unseen writing from an essential Black author. . . Those acquainted
with the author will see familiar themes emerge as she engages with
colonialism, code switching, white supremacy, liberation politics,
sexism, sexual violence, and collective trauma. She writes of desire and
despair and revolution and Black joy using language and imagery that
she was taught to hide from white people. . . Shange speaks candidly of
her struggles with mental health and her years in psychoanalysis, and
she insists that therapy made her a better writer. . . The literary
value of these works extends far beyond the insight they offer into
Shange’s life and artistic career."―Kirkus (Starred Review)
“As
a playwright, poet, and sometimes essayist, Shange worked at the
intersection of Black liberation and radical feminism… [T]he work of
artists like Shange must be preserved and celebrated. This posthumous
collection of essays, poems, and plays—many being published for the
first time—does just that.”―Lit Hub
"Even
posthumously, Shange's unique voice is more relevant than ever. Her
lyrical way of telling stories imbues these revived essays, plays, and
poems with a vitality that consistently centers Black women and girls
and goes toe-to-toe with white supremacy, sexism, and colonialism.
Perfect for longtime fans and newcomers to her radically experimental
body of work, Sing a Black Girl's Song gives readers a deeper understanding of how this literary icon created her signature style."―BUST
“From
a poem published in her high school newspaper to her groundbreaking
choreopoems to moving critical essays—all previously unpublished—this
volume showcases the genius of Shange: her breadth, depth, wisdom and
love.”―Ms. Magazine
“What
a fabulous treasure trove of insights into Ntozake Shange's soul… this
book provides an intoxicating slice of life to make anyone a lifelong
fan… Beautiful. Just like her.”―Good Morning America
“Raw,
illuminating and revelatory, Ntozake’s Shange’s bold and lyrical
writing gave urgent voice to a new generation of young Black writers
like myself who were emboldened by the honesty and beauty of her poetry,
plays, and prose to tell our own stories.”―Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright
"With Sing A Black Girl’s Song,
Imani Perry offers intimacy with Ntozake Shange as a peerless, prolific
writer in process. Here is a brilliant multi-genre gathering from
Shange’s archive that maps her political and creative maturation on her
quest for self-actualization as a Black woman in America participating
in transnational Black liberation movements. Brimming with lyrical
incandescence, sensuality and self-regard, Shange urges us to “keep an
eye” on ourselves, documenting not only what is happening to us, but within us and through us individually and collectively."―Erika Dickerson-Despenza, playwright and Inaugural Resident of the Ntozake Shange Social Justice Playwriting Residency
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND EDITOR:
Ntozake Shange,
author of thirty-six published works, is increasingly recognized as one
of America’s greatest writers having, for fifty years, embodied the
struggle of women of color for equality and the recognition of their
contribution to human culture. Shange’s literary legacy, preserved in
the Shange Institute at Barnard College, comprises thirteen plays, seven
novels, six children’s books and nineteen poetry collections, the
majority of which are published and in print. Her 1974 “choreo-poem,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow Is enuf,
retains its status as the longest-running play by an African American
writer in Broadway history. The 2022 Broadway revival of for colored girls garnered
seven TONY Award nominations. She has been posthumously inducted into
both the NY State Writers and the Off-Broadway Alliance Halls of
Fame, cementing her legacy as one of the most cherished Black feminist
writers of our time.
Imani Perry (Editor) is
the Carol K. Pforzheimer professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and
professor of African American studies and women and gender studies at
Harvard University. She is a 2023 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the
author of seven books, including South to America,
winner of the 2022 National Book Award. She is a recipient of the
Lambda Literary Award and the Hurston Wright Award, and was a finalist
for an NAACP Image Award, among others. She has written for The New York Times; TheAtlantic; Harpers; O, the Oprah Magazine; New York Magazine; and The Paris Review. Perry earned
her PhD in American studies from Harvard University, a JD from Harvard
Law School, an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center, and a BA from
Yale College in literature and American studies.
