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Title details for Black Is the Body by Emily Bernard - Available

Black Is the Body

Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine

by Emily Bernard
Emily Bernard
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.” 
In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up black in the south with a family name inherited from a white man, surviving a random stabbing at a New Haven coffee shop, marrying a white man from the North and bringing him home to her family, adopting two children from Ethiopia, and living and teaching in a primarily white New England college town. Each of these essays sets out to discover a new way of talking about race and of telling the truth as the author has lived it. 

"Black Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs I've ever read. It's about race, it's about womanhood, it's about friendship, it's about a life of the mind, and also a life of the body. But more than anything, it's about love. I can't praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages." —Elizabeth Gilbert
WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PROSE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWS
ONE OF MAUREEN CORRIGAN'S 10 UNPUTDOWNABLE READS OF THE YEAR

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 29, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781984839886
      • File size: 170695 KB
      • Duration: 05:55:36

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Emily Bernard proves herself a gifted storyteller and a gifted narrator. This moving reading of her own essays is laced with nuance, emotion, and her ongoing struggle with the topics she addresses. As a graduate student at Yale, Bernard was one of seven victims of a random stabbing attack at a local coffee shop. Though it was traumatizing and painful, she also notes that the attack released her narrative power to explore the truth of bodies white and black living in America and how those bodies shape our knowledge of ourselves and each other across generations. These essays are full of powerful memories and thought-provoking challenges. Bernard guides the listener with a calm, earnest tone that seems like a conversation with a wise friend. B.E.K. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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