Search results for ""author honoree fanonne jeffers""

A TOP TEN NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ‘Astonishing… A great work infused with love and honesty’ Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple ‘Deeply moving… it is magnificent’ Sarah Winman, author of Still Life ‘A remarkable work’ Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) ‘Epic… It just consumed me' Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club ‘The kind of book that comes around only once a decade' Washington Post A breath-taking debut novel that chronicles the journey of generations of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade to our own tumultuous era The great scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called ‘Double Consciousness,’ a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle to feel like she belongs, made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women – her mother, her sister and a maternal line reaching back two centuries – that urge her to succeed in their stead. Ailey decides to embark on a journey through her family's past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors – Indigenous, Black, and white – in the deep South. In doing so she must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story – and the song – of America itself. Sweeping, compulsive and deeply moving, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is set to be one of the most talked about books of the year. LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN LITERARY PRIZE New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • Time 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post 10 Best Books of the Year • People 10 Best Books of the Year • Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK ‘Deeply moving’ Sarah Winman, author of Still Life ‘Remarkable’ Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) ‘A sweeping epic … Outstanding’ Daily Mail Immerse yourself in a celebration of Black womanhood and an epic tale of the stories that span generations. Ailey Pearl Garfield grows up between the City in the north and summers spent in her mother’s small hometown of Chicasetta, Georgia. From an early age, she finds herself in a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hurt in her past, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead. To come to terms with her identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself. ‘Mesmerising… magnificent’ Independent ‘Astonishing… A great work infused with love and honesty’ Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple ‘Gripping, gorgeous. A sweeping family saga that is also history at its most intimate and vital’ Stef Penney, author of The Tenderness of Wolves LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN LITERARY PRIZE New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • Time 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post 10 Best Books of the Year • People 10 Best Books of the Year • Booklist 10 Best First Novels of the Year

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A book of poems which expresses the poet's familiarity with the actual and imaginary spaces that the American South occupies in our cultural lexicon. It approaches the southern landscape as utopia and dystopia - a crossroads of race, gender, and blood.

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Tanella Boni is a major African poet, and this book, The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn, is her first full collection to be translated into English. These poems wrestle with the ethnic violence and civil war that dominated life in West Africa’s Ivory Coast in the first decade of the new millennium. Boni maps these events onto a mythic topography where people live among their ancestors and are subject to the whims of the powerful, who are at once magical and all too petty. The elements—the sun, the wind, the water—are animated as independent forces, beyond simile or metaphor. Words, too, are elemental, and the poet is present in the landscape—“during these times / I searched for the letters / for the perfect word.” Boni affirms her desire for hope in the face of ethno‑cultural and state violence although she acknowledges that desiring to hope and hoping are not the same.

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