Literary Criticism

Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, but until now there has not been a version that is a superlative literary text in its own right. Acclaimed by critics and scholars, Stephen Mitchell's version allows us to enter an...

Composed over 2,500 years, lost in the deserts of Iraq for 2,000 more, Gilgamesh presents a palimpsest of ancient Middle Eastern cultic and courtly lyrics and lore. The story of a visionary journey beyond the limits of human experience, Gilgamesh is a...

Tracy Ellison, the sizzling heroine of the bestselling Flyy Girl, returns in this razor-sharp sequel from acclaimed author Omar Tyree. From hard-knocks Philly to glamorous Hollywood, Tracy Ellison has truly walked the walk. Now twenty-eight years old and...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Public enemy. Crucial macronutrient. Health risk. Punchline. Moneymaker. Epidemic. Sexual fetish. Moral failing. Necessary bodily organ. Conveyor...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The electric candle and faux fur, coffee substitutes and meat analogues, Obama impersonators, prosthetics. Imitation this, false that. Humans have...

On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail, all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit believes he has become a healer,...

In her first posthumous work, the revered poet crafts a personal history of Black dance and captures the careers of legendary dancers along with her own rhythmic beginnings. Many learned of Ntozake Shange's ability to blend movement with words when her...

Six incendiary stories that reflect the rage and frustration -- and the determination to survive -- of America's disenfranchised inner-city youth Concrete Candy marks the debut of an astonishing new writer -- notable both for the authenticity and...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Coffee--it's the thing that gets us through, and over, and around. The thing--the beverage, the break, the ritual--we choose to slow ourselves down...

but is a womanist and hip-hop ode to seeing and honoring the humanity of the one who persists on the journey to the other side of but. It is a personal account of abuse, love, femininity, and redemption.Divided into four chapters and written by Tove,...

From the author of Scenes from a Sistah and Getting to the Good Part, a provocative, dynamic story about making it big in the city of desire. Hollywood. The place people go to fulfill their dreams. But its reality is a cruel one: Opportunities are few...

Blank is a collection of previously out-of-print essays and new works by one of Canada's most important writers and thinkers. Through an engagement with her earlier work, M. NourbeSe Philip comes to realize the existence of a repetition in the world: the...

A New Statesman essential non-fiction book of 2021Featured in Book Riot's 12 best nonfiction books about Black identity and history Why are there so many examples of public figures, entertainers, and normal, everyday people in blackface? And why aren't...

This unique volume provides each writers reflection on her work, an evaluation of that writer by two perceptive critics, and detailed biographical and bibliographical data.Included are Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Alice...

Spanning over 250 years of history, Black Ink traces black literature in America from Frederick Douglass to Ta-Nehisi Coates in this "breathtaking anthology celebrating the power of the written word to forge change" (O, The Oprah Magazine). Throughout...

This first-of-its kind collection includes a wide range of works, from an early examination and critique of American society after World War II to plays that reflect socio-political concerns that kept pace with historical events, like the sit-in...