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Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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Friday Black

Stories

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Length 7 hours 8 minutes

Language English

Narrators Corey Allen & Carra Patterson

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Bookseller recommendation

“If you like Childish Gambino's This is America, you'll love Friday Black. Using fantastical elements and fierce humor, these stories confront the painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day. You'll see that the truth is what's most disturbing. ”
— Bryn • Bookstore1Sarasota

Bookseller recommendation

“What a breathtaking collection. These stories are so artfully crafted and imaginatively constructed that at first blush they carry the same satisfaction as the best social satire out there and all the respect that goes along with the label; this collection, however, commands that and more. It is wrenching in its acute, precise indictment of white culture and its guardians, all the while offering language that is playfully impish in its originality. Adjei-Brenyah has an innate ability to create worlds that are familiar and distant and that feel like a privilege to be able to glimpse. This is not to be missed.”
— Christen Thompson • Itinerant Literate Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Friends, this is it. This is the book we’ve been waiting for. And now I can’t get it out of my head, and the pit of my stomach, and my aching heart. It is that good, that gorgeous, that brutal, surreal, tender, enlightening, bitingly funny, and unbelievably truthful. And it’s short stories, so I urge you to savor them one at a time, if you can. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is here, and I say not a moment too soon.”
— Melinda • Bookshop Santa Cruz

Summary

PEN/Jean Stein AwardCarnegie MedalA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe acclaimed debut collection from the author of Chain Gang All Stars; a piercingly raw and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it’s like to be young and Black in America.From the start of this extraordinary debut, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that Black men and women contend with every day in this country.These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world.• In “The Finkelstein Five,” Adjei-Brenyah gives us an unforgettable reckoning of the brutal prejudice of our justice system.• In “Zimmer Land,” we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of racism as sport.• “Friday Black” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King” show the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.Entirely fresh in its style and perspective, and sure to appeal to fans of Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, and George Saunders, Friday Black confronts readers with a complicated, insistent, wrenching chorus of emotions, the final note of which, remarkably, is hope.“An unbelievable debut, one that announces a new and necessary American voice.”—New York Times Book Review

Fiction