アンドリュー・カーネギー成人向けフィクションおよびノンフィクション優秀賞
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
ブラック・パフォーマンスの歴史と個人的記憶を重ねながら、アメリカ文化の中にある表現の力をたどるエッセイ集。断片ごとの観察が、ひとつの大きな文化史としてつながっていく。
作品情報
表現の一瞬に宿る歴史を、静かに強く読み解く。
『A Little Devil in America』は、黒人音楽、ダンス、日常の身振りを手がかりに、ブラック・パフォーマンスがアメリカ文化のどこに根を張っているかを見つめる。個人的な記憶と歴史の読み替えが重なり、読後に長く残る余韻をつくる。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Random House
- 発売日
- 2021-03-30
- ページ数
- 320ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 14.53 x 2.77 x 21.64 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781984801197
- ISBN-10
- 1984801198
- 価格
- 4365 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Social Sciences/Specific Demographics/African American Studies
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A sweeping, genre-bending “masterpiece” (Minneapolis Star Tribune ) exploring Black art, music, and culture in all their glory and complexity—from Soul Train, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Whitney Houston, and Beyoncé ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Dallas Morning News, Publishers Weekly “Gorgeous essays that reveal the resilience, heartbreak, and joy within Black performance.”—Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century • An Oprah Daily Best Nonfiction Book of the Past Two Decades “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and bestselling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance. Touching on Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Billy Dee Williams, the Wu-Tan Clan, Dave Chappelle, and more, Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL AND THE GORDON BURN PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AND THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Rolling Stone, Esquire , BuzzFeed, Thrillist, She Reads, BookRiot , BookPage, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, LitHub, Library Journal, Booklist
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in PEN American , Muzzle , Vinyl , and other journals, and his essays and criticism have been published in The New Yorker , Pitchfork , The New York Times , and Fader . His first full-length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much , was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer book award and nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us was named a book of the year by NPR , Esquire , BuzzFeed , O: The Oprah Magazine , Pitchfork and Chicago Tribune , among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune for Your Disaster , won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School. In 2021, he was named a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow.
レビュー
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DAMN this writer has flair. And literary skill. And delicate sensitivity. And the incredible mind to dextrously weave together endlessly rich cultural references with his own stories. I drank this collection in so deeply, I didn't want it to end. It's not often that I pause in the middle of a book and think "I'm in the presence of greatness" but I felt like this multiple times reading this. 100% would recommend. Also, it's funny and tender as well as being razor sharp, deep, intelligent, profound. loved it.
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Das Buch ist einfach Super. Ich bin glücklich. Vielen Dank nochmal.
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I love the way Abdurraqib writes. He is so poetic, even while writing prose. The way he combines sports, music, film, his personal life, and current events is just so amazing and something I hope to be able to achieve in my own writing someday. My favorite essays are “On Times I Have Forced Myself to Dance” (in Movement I) and “I Would Like To Give Merry Clayton Her Roses.” I’m really glad I read this book and took a class that allowed me to read the works of this amazing author.
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Hanif Abdurraqib's book isn't explicitly about race. It is, as it says in the title, an ode to Black performance. But race is the topic of this work from the first page to the last. And I'm happy to say, it's a book I wrestled with, not the least because I often disagreed with the observations Abdurraqib makes about his own life. One part history book, one part autobiography, Abdurraqib lenses his experiences and his studies on Black performers through the racial conflicts of our time. I regularly wondered at some of his reported experiences. He regularly attributes hardships to his race but I, a white man, have encountered many of the same feelings of isolation, otherism and aggression he reports. Race issues carry the weight of import here, noticeable especially when he describes non-race issues (and how little of an impact they have beside other stories in the book). At times, I found myself wishing he'd draw the same conclusions as one of his heroes: that we are blessed to suffer hardship. But at the end of the day, I found myself enthralled in the telling of his experience. Whether I would draw the same conclusions about his experiences as Abdurraqib is hardly the point of the book. The story he weaves over a number of connected essays is powerful because he has put his own views alongside his history lessons. There is never a moment in which I imagined his views were irrational; there wasn't a point I thought him guilty of exaggerating for effect. This is why this book is so important. It is an honest attempt by the writer, Abdurraqib, to relay the vision of his life, knowing any reader from any background can pick it up and pick apart his thoughts. Abdurraqib seems little interested in pushing a particular set of policies or ideas. Instead, he is letting his reader into his life, into his point of view, and that in itself is fascinating enough that I was sad to see the book come to a close. Abdurraqib is very likely one of America's best communicators because he communicates from his soul to anyone willing to listen. This book is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand perspectives different from their own, which in the name of peace between brothers and sisters, ought to be anyone.
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I loved this book and didn't want it to end.