Books
Ishmael Reed’s “Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down”
My introduction to the Dalkey Archive Press edition of Reed’s postmodern Western. (“The Yeehaw Papyrus,” The New York Review of Books)Ishmael Reed’s “Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down”
Yoko Tawada
A review-essay on Yoko Tawada’s “exophonic” literature. (The New Yorker)Yoko Tawada
Percival Everett
A review of his novel “Trees.” (“Dead Reckoning,” The New Yorker)Percival Everett
Ishmael Reed
A profile of Ishmael Reed, one of America’s greatest living satirists. I visited him in Oakland, where we discussed the co-optation of “multiculturalism” and the boom-and-bust cycles of black literature in American publishing. (“I Ain’t Been Mean Enough,” The New Yorker)Ishmael Reed
Clint Smith’s “How the World is Passed”
A review of his book on the contemporary commemoration of slavery. (The New York Times Book Review)Clint Smith’s “How the World is Passed”
Octavia Butler
A review-essay on the occasion of the science fiction legend’s first Library of America volume. (“Stranger Communities,” The New Yorker)Octavia Butler
An Interview with Scholatique Mukasonga
A conversation with the Rwandan writer on the occasion of the film adaptation of her novel “Our Lady of the Nile.” (The White Review)An Interview with Scholatique Mukasonga