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Sign up todayThe Black Period
On Personhood, Race, and Origin
Narrator
Hafizah Augustus Geter
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Length
10 hours 45 minutes
Language
English
An acclaimed poet reclaims her origin story as the queer daughter of a Muslim Nigerian immigrant and a Black American visual artist in this groundbreaking memoir, combining lyrical prose, biting criticism, and haunting visuals.
“Hafizah Augustus Geter is a genuine artist, not bound by genre or form. Her only loyalty is the harrowing beauty of the truth.”—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
“I say, ‘the Black Period,’ and mean ‘home’ in all its shapeshifting ways.” In The Black Period, Hafizah creates a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish, celebrating the many layers of her existence that America has time and again sought to erase.
At nineteen, she lost her mother to a sudden stroke. Weeks later, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass. By her thirties, she was constantly in pain, pinballing between physical therapy appointments, her grief, and the grind that is the American Dream. Hafizah realized she'd spent years internalizing the narratives that white supremacy had fed her about herself. Suddenly, she says, I was standing at the cliff of my own life, remembering.
Recalling her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision, and mixing history, political analysis, and cultural criticism, alongside stunning original artwork created by her father, renowned artist Tyrone Geter, Hafizah maps out her own narrative, weaving between a childhood populated with Southern and Nigerian relatives; her days in a small Catholic school; a loving but tragically short relationship with her mother; and the feelings of joy and community that the Black Lives Matter protests engendered in her as an adult. All throughout, she forms a new personal and collective history, addressing the systems of inequity that make life difficult for non-able-bodied persons, queer people, and communities of color while capturing a world brimming with potential, art, music, hope, and love.
A unique combination of gripping memoir and Afrofuturist thought, in The Black Period, Hafizah manages to sidestep shame, confront disability, embrace forgiveness, and emerge from the erasures America imposes to exist proudly and unabashedly as herself.
*Includes a downloadable PDF of visual art from the book
Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian American writer, poet, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collection Un-American, an NAACP Image Award and PEN Open Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Bomb Magazine, The Believer, The Paris Review, among many others. The poetry committee co-chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, she is a Bread Loaf Katherine Bakeless nonfiction fellow, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, a 92Y Women in Power Fellow, and holds an MFA in nonfiction from NYU where she was an Axinn Fellow. Hafizah lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian American writer, poet, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collection Un-American, an NAACP Image Award and PEN Open Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Bomb Magazine, The Believer, The Paris Review, among many others. The poetry committee co-chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, she is a Bread Loaf Katherine Bakeless nonfiction fellow, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, a 92Y Women in Power Fellow, and holds an MFA in nonfiction from NYU where she was an Axinn Fellow. Hafizah lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Reviews
“In this lyrical memoir, Geter, a poet, sets down a powerful vision of Black life in the United States. . . . She asks, ‘What would it look like to emerge from erasure?’ Her father’s oil paintings and charcoal drawings, scattered throughout the book, provide one response.”—The New Yorker“Among the most evocative and intellectually dazzling memoirs of recent times.”—Suketu Mehta, author of This Land Is Our Land
“A book of extraordinary ambition, at once bracing, beautiful, and necessary—I couldn’t put it down.”—Meghan O’Rourke, author of The Invisible Kingdom
“An absolutely stunning literary experience . . . Hafizah Augustus Geter has written a classic.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
“A stellar example of the brilliance it requires to walk the tightrope of offering a full portrait of a life . . . a triumph of the form.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America
“Hafizah Augustus Geter announces herself as a storyteller, truth seeker, and pathfinder. This is a work that interrogates as it both mourns and celebrates.”—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
“A brilliant evocation of artistic and political restlessness . . . a record of sustaining joy.”—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
“An affirmation of the strongest sort . . . a simple and beautiful statement of our inevitability.”—Uzodinma Iweala, author of Speak No Evil
“An essential read for all of us concerned with navigating the century ahead . . . The Black Period is a triumph.”—Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of The Disordered Cosmos
“An indictment, an elegy, and above all a work of brilliance.”—Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body
“Overflows with stories, family histories, disarming images, and arresting truths.”—Jess Row, author of White Flights
“A journey of greater breadth and depth than nearly anything else being written today.”—John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
“In this elegiac text, a Nigerian American poet pays homage to her family while considering Black origin stories. . . . A resonant collage of memories, soulfulness, and elective, electrifying solidarity.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Geter’s expansive vision becomes much more than a self-portrait as it confronts how the human body keeps score—and survives. This poetic memoir delivers”—Publishers Weekly Expand reviews
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