24 Books to Christmas is really making me look back on my past reading. There are so many really great books that I’ve read in the recent past but also in the far away past. I decided to go with The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race for day 4.
The Fire This Time was released in 2016. It is an anthology that was edited by National Book Award Winner, Jesmyn Ward. It’s a collection of 17 essays by some of the top black American writers of the moment. Discussing race these essays are all poignant and thought-provoking. While its title is inspired by Baldwin’s, The Fire Next Time, Jesmyn Ward brought these essays together as a response to the ongoing atrocities happening to blacks and people of color in the United States. You surely won’t forget them.
Sadly I feel like this collection was hardly pushed in the book influencer community at its release. I wonder if that was because of the subject matter, or because it’s an anthology, or both. Please comment below and let me know what you think the reason could be.
You’ll read powerful essays from Isabel Wilkerson, Kiese Laymon, Mitchell S. Jackson, Edwidge Danticat, Daniel José Older, and more. The Fire This Time is accessible and not very long for those that find long essay collections a put off. The collection is separated into 3 parts: Legacy, Reckoning, and Jubilee, which represent some of “the darkest corners of American history” (The Fire This Time inside book flap)
. I recommend this essay collection to readers looking for and excellent nonfiction read, readers who desire to learn more about living in the United States as a black person, and who are interested in reading nonfiction pieces from some of their favorite black authors.
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 215
My rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
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I’m looking forward to reading this one in 2020! Sadly, I’m not sure why this didn’t receive the attention that her fiction books did. Perhaps the seriousness of the subject matter may have something to do with it.
Probably but it’s sad that people can’t read what black people in America go through everyday. That’s the least they can do is educate themselves. Smh… When you get to this one Rosa I’d love to hear what you think about it.
I think you bring up some good points about why this book didn’t receive a lot of attention in the book influencer community. I think the topic, plus the fact that it is an anthology of nonfiction essays requires the reader to come to the book with a particular kind of openness and curiosity; not merely the jumble of things that rush to your mind when you think of “race.”
Exactly! However it pains me to see, in the 21st century, that the book influencer community still isn’t curious enough to read about black Americans. 🙁