The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin
Hafizah Augustus Geter
(Author)
Description
Acclaimed poet Hafizah Augustus Geter reclaims her origin story in this "lyrical memoir" (The New Yorker)--combining biting criticism and haunting visuals. "Hafizah Augustus Geter is a genuine artist, not bound by genre or form. Her only loyalty is the harrowing beauty of the truth."--Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Winner of the PEN Open Book Award - Winner of the Lambda Literary Award - A New Yorker Best Book of the Year - A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year - A Brittle Paper Notable African Book of the Year - Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize "I say, 'the Black Period, ' and mean 'home' in all its shapeshifting ways." A book of great hope, Hafizah Augustus Geter's The Black Period creates a map for how to survive: a country, a closet, a mother's death, and the terror of becoming who we are in a world not built to accommodate diverse identities. At nineteen, she suddenly lost her mother to a stroke. Weeks later, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass. Amid the crumbling of her world, Hafizah struggled to know how to mourn a Muslim woman in a freshly post-9/11 America. Weaving through a childhood populated with southern and Nigerian relatives, her days in a small Catholic school, and learning to accept her own sexuality, and in the face of a chronic pain disability that sends her pinballing through the grind that is the American Dream, Hafizah discovers that grief is a political condition. In confronting the many layers of existence that the world tries to deny, it becomes clear that in order to emerge from erasure, she must map out her own narrative. Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought--alongside stunning original artwork created by her father, renowned artist Tyrone Geter--Hafizah leans into her parents' lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish. As exquisitely told as it is innovative, and with a lyricism that dazzles, The Black Period is a reminder that joy and tenderness require courage, too.Product Details
Price
$28.99
$26.96
Publisher
Random House
Publish Date
September 20, 2022
Pages
448
Dimensions
6.3 X 9.4 X 1.6 inches | 1.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780593448649
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian American writer, poet, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collection Un-American, an NAACP Image Award and PEN Open Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Bomb, The Believer, The Paris Review, among many others. The poetry committee co-chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, she is a Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless nonfiction fellow, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, and a 92Y Women inPower Fellow and holds an MFA in nonfiction from New York University, where she was an Axinn Fellow. Hafizah lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Reviews
"The Black Period is an astonishing book: one that contends with racism and climate change, stands against erasure, and finds new meanings in taking a transhistorical approach, weaving a powerful tapestry of memoir, cultural criticism, research, reporting, and hope. Hafizah Augustus Geter has crafted a book of extraordinary ambition, at once bracing, beautiful, and necessary. I couldn't put it down."--Meghan O'Rourke, author of The Invisible Kingdom "The Black Period overflows with stories, family histories, disarming images, and arresting truths, diving deep into our shared critical conversations about race, justice, history, and what we owe one another. Prepare to be absorbed."--Jess Row, author of White Flights "With The Black Period, Hafizah Augustus Geter announces herself as a storyteller, truth seeker, and pathfinder. With equal parts heart and rigor, this is a work that interrogates as it both mourns and celebrates. Geter's life spans the continents of the earth, but also crosses the lands and oceans of human experience. She is a genuine artist, not bound by genre or form. Her only loyalty is to the harrowing beauty of the truth."--Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage "The Black Period is an absolutely stunning literary experience. If our creases could croon and our aches could wail, The Black Period is what it might sound like. Hafizah Geter has written a classic."--Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
