A lucid and compelling explication of a provocative and disruptively radical philosophy of race and colonialism. Wilderson twines together the ideas of a persistent, ineradicable process of Black enslavement with personal memoir. Theory and narrative, each providing illumination of the other. Afropessism is not aiming to make anyone comfortable, but the work has an unflinching, raw beauty and rings true.
Praised as “a trenchant, funny, and unsparing work of memoir and philosophy” (Aaron Robertson, Literary Hub), Frank B. Wilderson’s Afropessimism arrived at a moment when protests against police brutality once again swept the nation. Presenting an argument we can no longer ignore, Wilderson insists that we must view Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Radical in conception, remarkably poignant, and with soaring flights of memoir, Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit.“Wilderson’s ambitious book offers its readers two great gifts. First, it strives mightily to make its pessimistic vision plausible. . . . Second, the book depicts a remarkable life, lived with daring and sincerity.”—Paul C. Taylor, Washington Post
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781324090519
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: 09-28-2021
Pages: 368
Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)
About the Author
Professor and chair of African American studies at the University of California, Irvine, and award-winning author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, Frank B. Wilderson III lives in Irvine, California.
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