| Contents |
Considering the silence (An author's note) -- Letters to James Baldwin -- Mr. Brown, Mrs. White and Ms Black -- The old Black woman who sat in the corner -- The crimes that haunt the body -- An absence of poets and poodles -- The boys at the harbour -- The buck, the bacchanal, and again, the body -- Our worst behaviour -- There are truths hidden in our bodies -- The white women and the language of bees -- Dear Binyavanga, I am not writing about Africa -- Sometimes, the only way down a mountain is by prayer -- My brother, my brother -- And this is how we die. |
| Abstract |
"In this moving, critical, and lyrical collection of essays, by the acclaimed Forward Prize winner, Kei Miller explores the silences in which so many important things are kept. Miller examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it-to risk words, to risk truth; and through the body and the histories those bodies inherit-the crimes that haunt them, and how the meanings of our bodies can shift as we move through the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood. Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, questions of aesthetics, and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice from a black, male, queer perspective. Through a disarmingly personal lens, this collection is an account of his experiences in Jamaica and Britain, working as an artist and intellectual, making friends and lovers, discovering the possibilities of music and dance, of literary criticism, culture, and storytelling."-- Provided by publisher. |
