Baldwin’s Paradoxes and Epithets
Race was—is—the fundamental American issue, underlying not only all matters of public policy (economic inequality, criminal justice, housing, education) but the very psyche of the nation. Nathaniel Rich, for the…
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James Baldwin
106 posts
A Portable James Baldwin
I came to her place to take a picture of Baldwin’s typewriter. This is what I told her. But I think I also came because I wanted to see someone…
Black Memoir
Memoir, the offspring of the slave narrative, is not simply a form within the Black literary tradition; it has thoroughly shaped that tradition. With the release of smash hit Between…
The Rumpus Interview with Garth Greenwell
Garth Greenwell discusses his debut novel, What Belongs to You, crossing boundaries, language as defense, and the queer tradition of novel writing that blurs boundaries between fiction and essay and autobiography.
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Chaitali Sen
Swati Khurana talks to the author of The Pathless Sky, a love story centered around place, the state’s authority, statelessness, and geology.
I’ll Fly Away: Notes on Economy Class Citizenship
I want to break from a continued and systematic white supremacy so pervasive it is entrenched in the vernacular I use to express myself.
Between the World and Ta-Nehisi Coates
Over at the Guardian, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks to Tim Adams about the success of Between the World and Me, racism, and drawing inspiration from James Baldwin: It’s more Baldwin understood that if you…
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tom Andes reviews Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates today in Rumpus Books.
The Rumpus Review of [insert] boy by Danez Smith
In this sense, the book is a “coming-of-age” story and “spiritual quest” as much as a seething commentary on the catastrophe effected by the disease of contemporary racism and white supremacy.
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Bill Cosby’s Faux Legacy
Bill Cosby was never the man, the icon, the protector and illustrator of black culture, the guide, the genius we have created in our minds.
Letter to Everyone Else
Ta-Nehisi Coates continues to storm the literary world over at Rolling Stone and New York Magazine, and if those accolades weren’t enough, Toni Morrison has decreed him to “fill the intellectual void…