Unexplained Presence (PB) (2024)

In Tisa Bryant's Unexplained Presence, readers are spectators of mis-en-scènes in which black subjectivity has been distorted and denied within various visual narratives. Moving from cultural analysis to cinematic (re)creation, Bryant's prose traverses like a tracking shot through John Schlesinger's Darling, Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park and Virginia Woolf's Orlando, giving voice to characters whom have otherwise been structurally silenced. As Pulitzer-prize winning author Margo Jefferson aptly points out in her afterword, Tisa Bryant doesn't merely write about film; she is an "auteur," a "cultural anthropologist," and a "virtuosic critic-artist." Since its original publication with Leon Works in 2007, Unexplained Presence has been foundational among poets, scholars, and film critics and with this publication, Tisa Bryant's legacy as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary literature is preserved.