Black Ink

October 30, 2017
A passion for books pervades every page of this anthology of black writers’ reflections on reading and writing. Without the weight of a hefty textbook, this anthology acts as an enticing introduction to African-American writing from the 19th century to the present. Oliver’s approach is kaleidoscopic, encompassing Solomon Northrup clandestinely making ink by “boiling white maple bark,” Frederick Douglass swapping bread with poor white children for reading lessons from them, Martin Luther King discovering Thoreau and Gandhi, and Stokely Carmichael discovering African history. Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Zora Neale Hurston are here, along with such non-U.S.-born writers as Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Oliver (Song for My Father) keeps the focus sharply on matters literary: Jamaica Kincaid mourns the loss of her childhood library to a storm, Terry McMillan finds an Afro-American-literature class in his first-year college course catalogue, and Ta-Nehisi Coates gorges himself on Howard University’s library. Additionally, Junot Díaz describes seeking, and then creating, “a safe supportive environment” for writers of color, and Colson Whitehead issues witty and practical writing rules. This work of discovery, recovery, and uncovering is, for any reader, an eye-opener.

November 1, 2017
Writers testify to the significance of reading and writing in their lives.In a well-chosen selection of essays by black writers from Frederick Douglass to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and including a candid interview with book-lover and author Barack Obama, former Essence editor Oliver (Song for My Father: Memoir of an All-American Family, 2004, etc.) offers ample testimony to the power of the written word. For slaves coming from disparate African countries, it is likely, writes poet Nikki Giovanni in her foreword, that the first word they had in common was "sold." Stories, many told through song, evolved from a need to form a community: "We write because we are lonely and scared and we need to keep our hearts open." Oliver divides the essays, most excerpted from longer works, into three sections: "The Peril, 1800-1900," represented by Douglass, Solomon Northrup, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois; "The Power, 1900-1968," which includes Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, stars of the Harlem Renaissance; James Baldwin; Malcolm X; and important contemporary writers, such as Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker; and prolific bestseller Maya Angelou; and "The Pleasure, 1968-2018," which features acclaimed, multiple award-winning writers (several have been awarded MacArthur Fellowships) such as Junot Diaz, Roxane Gay, Colson Whitehead, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Walker reveals that poetry lifted her from suicidal depression. Morrison sees her work as an extension of and "complement" to slave narratives. Gay writes about her love of the Sweet Valley High series of young-adult novels, whose "blond and thin and perfect" characters were models of all she wanted to be. Diaz writes of his despair in Cornell's MFA program, where lack of diversity among the faculty and "the students' lack of awareness of the lens of race" threatened to silence him. Oliver's cogent author introductions contextualize each piece, making the anthology an informative overview of African-American literature.Revelatory, often moving essays by impressive writers.

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December 1, 2017

This collection brings together excerpts, essays, and interviews by 25 black authors, including legends in the canon and newer writers such as Edwidge Danticat, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Roxane Gay, Colson Whitehead, and Marlon James. Written between 1845 and 2017, the works range from memoirs on the power of reading during slavery and emancipation to narratives of how certain books and authors shaped these writers' lives and straightforward advice on composition; all address the centrality of literacy to black liberation, both personally and politically. Many of these pieces, such as those by Maya Angelou, Frederick Douglass, and Malcolm X, will be familiar to those steeped in black history and literature. In an effort to be a tight and fast-moving read, some samples feel disjointed excerpted from their original books, and the very brief introductions to each piece are at times lacking in necessary historical context. But taken as a whole, this survey of what it means to be a black reader and writer is an important and long overdue project. VERDICT An essential collection for readers and students of black history and literature.--Kate Stewart, Arizona Historical Soc., Tucson

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