The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
byHonorée Fanonne Jeffers
A breathtaking and ambitious debut novel that chronicles the journey of multiple generations of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era, by prize-winning poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers.
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called 'Double Consciousness,' a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well.
Ailey grows up in the north in the city but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women - her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries - that urge her to succeed in their stead.
To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors - Indigenous, Black, and white - in the deep South. In doing so she must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story - and the song - of America itself.
Language
en
Published on
20/01/2022
Pages
816
Format
Hardback
ISBN
9780008516451
Price Comparison
More books by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
More books like “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois”
If you enjoyed reading “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, you may also like some of the following books.
