Book : Negroland A Memoir - Jefferson, Margo

-Titulo Original : Negroland A Memoir

-Fabricante :

Vintage

-Descripcion Original:

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic Jefferson takes us into an insular and discerning society: “I call it Negroland,” she writes, “because I still find ‘Negro’ a word of wonders, glorious and terrible.” Margo Jefferson was born in 1947 into upper-crust black Chicago. Her father was head of pediatrics at Provident Hospital, while her mother was a socialite. Negroland’s pedigree dates back generations, having originated with antebellum free blacks who made their fortunes among the plantations of the South. It evolved into a world of exclusive sororities, fraternities, networks, and clubs-a world in which skin color and hair texture were relentlessly evaluated alongside scholarly and professional achievements, where the Talented Tenth positioned themselves as a third race between whites and “the masses of Negros,” and where the motto was “Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment.” Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions, while reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments-the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the falsehood of post-racial America. Review Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award * A New York Times Notable Book“Brave. . . . Revelatory. . . . Recall[s] a number of America’s greatest thinkers on race . . . James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois.” -The New York Times Book Review“Powerful. . . . Margo Jefferson identifies and deftly explores the tensions that come with being party of America’s black elite.” -Roxane Gay, O, The Oprah Magazine“Jefferson is a national treasure and her memoir should be required reading across the country.” -Vanity Fair “Intricate and moving. . . . Powerful.” -The New York Times“Enlightening. . . . Poetic and bracing.” -The Washington Post “[A] masterpiece. . . . A phenomenal study-cum-memoir about the black bourgeoisie.” -Hilton Als, author of White Girls “A veritable library of African-American letters and a sumptious compendium of elegant style. . . . [Jefferson] paints her rich inner and outer landscape with deft, impressionistic strokes.” -The Boston Globe “Provocative and insightful. . . . Melancholic and hopeful, raw and disarming. . . . A moving memoir that is an act of courage in its vulnerability.” -Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns “Poignant. . . . Harrowing. . . . In Negroland, Jefferson is simultaneously looking in and looking out at her blackness, elusive in her terse, evocative reconnaissance, leaving us yearning to know more.” -Los Angeles Times “Jefferson combines memoir with cultural critique in a series of unsparing vignettes.” -The New Yorker “Provocative and extraordinary. . . . Haunting.” -Time “Lyrical. . . . Vibrant and damning. . . . Dares to throw a wrench-class-into our tortured debates about race.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune “Razor sharp, self-lacerating and singular.” -More “A candid observer, Jefferson articulates the complicated and calculated performance of upper-class black life.” -New York “Brilliantly written. . . . Not reading this remarkable, indeed unique book, would be an immense mistake. . . . One of the great books published this year.” -Buffalo News “Truly indispensable.” -Flavorwire “A nuanced meditation from a life lived in the upper echelons of Chicago’s black bourgeoisie, beginning before the civil-rights era and trailing off in our still-conflicted present.” -Vulture “Beautiful. . . . Artfully self-aware. . . . Jefferson succeeds at something remarkable: she tells her story while at the same time not only evocatively capturing her era but situating her experiences into a centuries-long cultural tradition.” -Bookslut “Shines a spotlight on a fascinating slice of the American e