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Nearly three decades after her pioneering anthology, Daughters of Africa, Margaret Busby curates an extraordinary collection of contemporary writing by 200 women writers of African descent, including Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A glorious portrayal of the richness and range of African women's voices, this major international book brings together their achievements across a wealth of genres. From Antigua to Zimbabwe and Angola to the USA, overlooked artists of the past join key figures, popular contemporaries and emerging writers in paying tribute to the heritage that unites them, the strong links that endure from generation to generation, and their common obstacles around issues of race, gender and class. Bold and insightful, brilliant in its intimacy and universality, this landmark anthology honours the talents of African daughters and the inspiring legacy that connects them-and all of us.
A classic in the black literary tradition, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is both a comment on the civil rights problems in the United States in the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy. Dan Freeman, the "spook who sat by the door," is enlisted in the CIA's elitist espionage program. Upon mastering agency tactics, however, he drops out to train young Chicago blacks as "Freedom Fighters" in this explosive, award-winning novel. As a story of one man's reaction to ruling-class hypocrisy, the book is autobiographical and personal. As a tale of a man's reaction to oppression, it is universal.
"A magnificent starting place for any reader interested in becoming part of the collective enterprise of discovering and uncovering the silent, forgotten, and underrated voices of black women." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD From all over the world and through the ages, here is a dazzling collection of two hundred women writers of African descent, showcased as never before, including: Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Childress, Maryse Conde, Aldo do Espirito Santo, Marita Golden, Pilar Lopez Gonzales, June Jordan, Terry McMillan, Queen of Sheba, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Phillis Weatley, and many, many others.
The Artist in Time brings together twenty creatives from across the UK, with photographs and interviews that disclose their daily working habits and motivations. All born before 1950, this is a collective portrait of a generation who have shaped our artistic landscape. They provide a range of different answers to the question 'what makes an artist?', and a set of insights into what makes up a creative life. Giving the reader access to the studio and working spaces of a diverse group of painters, poets, choreographers, filmmakers, illustrators, musicians, photographers, sculptors, writers and creators, The Artist in Time is a handbook for creativity and inspiration, made up of artists from all backgrounds who have all in their own way shaped, and continue to shape, the creative landscape of the United Kingdom.
This rare self-portrait from pioneering publisher, writer and cultural activist Margaret Busby underscores her powerful legacy and celebrates some of the people and places that have shaped her exceptional life Margaret Busby has been at the heart of cultural life in the UK for over 50 years. From becoming Britain’s youngest and first Black woman publisher when she founded publishing house Allison & Busby, to editing the ground-breaking international anthologies Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa, her many achievements are testament to her dedication to championing the lives and stories of others, particularly those throughout the world who have been marginalised by the mainstr...
Africa has produced some of the best writing of the twentieth century from Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and the Nobel Laureates Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Doris Lessing, to more recent talents like Nuruddin Farah, Ben Okri, Aminatta Forna and Brian Chikwava. Who will be the next generation?Following the successful launch of Bogotá39, which identified many of the most interesting upcoming Latin American talents, including Daniel Alarcon, Junot Diaz (Pulitzer Prize), Santiago Roncagliolo (Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and Juan Gabriel Vásquez (short-listed for the IFFP), and Beirut39 which published Randa Jarrar, Rabee Jaber, Joumana Haddad, Abd...
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In her first-ever collection of essays, poet and novelist Lorna Goodison interweaves the personal and political to explore themes that have occupied her working life: her love of poetry and the arts, colonialism and its legacy, racism and social justice, authenticity, and the enduring power of friendship. Taking her title from one of Kingston's oldest markets, a historic meeting place that was almost destroyed by fire, she introduces us to a vivid cast of characters and remembers moments of epiphany—in a cinema in Jamaica, at New York's Bottom Line club, and as she searched for a black hairdresser in Paris and drank tea in London's Marylebone High Street. Enlightening and entertaining, these essays explore not only daily challenges but also the compassion that enables us to rise above them. Goodison's poet's eye, profound vision and glorious combination of metaphysical and post-colonial sensibilities confirm her as a major figure in world literature.
The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home, originally published in 2009, has become a beloved and much-praised source, providing fascinating revelations into the post-war British experience of immigrants, the decoration of their living spaces and their position in society in relation to decolonisation. The 'front room' (emanating from the Victorian parlour) provides an outlet to respond to the feelings of displacement, exile and alienation and the rebuilding of a home in a strange land. Primarily concerned with Caribbean homes, The Front Room also looks at Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean and Indonesian migrant groups in Holland--encompassing, through texts, archival documents and artistic photographs, the important cultural markers that are expressed through the domestic interiors of migrants. The author examines how this intimate space within the home raises issues of class, race, migration, aspiration, religion, family, gender, identity and alienation. He also looks at the transition from the colonial post-colonial modernity by placing the book in the context of his own family's migrant experience.
A powerful document of the day-to-day realities of Black women in Britain The Heart of the Race is a powerful corrective to a version of Britain’s history from which black women have long been excluded. It reclaims and records black women’s place in that history, documenting their day-to-day struggles, their experiences of education, work and health care, and the personal and political struggles they have waged to preserve a sense of identity and community. First published in 1985 and winner of the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize that year, The Heart of the Race is a testimony to the collective experience of black women in Britain, and their relationship to the British state throughout its long history of slavery, empire and colonialism. This new edition includes a foreword by Lola Okolosie and an interview with the authors, chaired by Heidi Safia Mirza, focusing on the impact of their book since publication and its continuing relevance today