An accessible and popular introduction to African photography and film from the mid-twentieth century to the present day

Drawing from archival imagery and documents, interviews with the photographers and filmmakers (in some cases family members and/ or close associates), and with contributions from writers, scholars, and curators, The African Gaze is a mapping of and an introduction to the postcolonial African moving and still image.

In The African Gaze, based on the university course of the same title, author Amy Sall looks at ways in which artistic expression in photography and cinema engendered discourses concerning identity, power, and self-determination.

Colonial photography deprived Africans of agency, rendered them voiceless, and classified them as subaltern. In colonial photography, African people were subjected to a physical positioning and gaze which took away their autonomy and allowed western viewers to perceive them as primitive. African photographers and filmmakers from just before independence and onward (and in some cases even earlier), were able to reclaim this power and allow their communities to see themselves as they were, and explore their social, economic, and political conditions from their own perspective.

This is a timely publication as engagement with Black and African histories is stronger than ever before (and long overdue). The major names of African photography, such as Malick Sidibé, Sanlé Sory, and Seydou Keita have become highly collectible in the art market and African cinema, pioneered by Ousmane Sembene in 1960s Senegal, is now recognized for its creative innovation and storytelling.

“The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational.” —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback

Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition
 
For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin’s iconic book design with twelve influential American literary classics representing the breadth and diversity of the Penguin Classics library. These collectible editions are dressed in the iconic orange and white tri-band cover design, first created in 1935, while french flaps, high-quality paper, and striking cover illustrations provide the cutting-edge design treatment that is the signature of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions today.

The Joy Luck Club
 
In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan’s debut novel—now widely regarded as a modern classic—examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters.

The long-awaited first major monograph on the iconic portraitist of Black Americans

This is the first comprehensive monograph on acclaimed painter Amy Sherald, whose distinctive style of simplified realist portraiture features African American subjects rendered against colorful monochrome backdrops or in everyday settings. Sherald rose to fame after being chosen by former first lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, in 2018, becoming the first African American woman to receive this honor. In addition to reproductions of Sherald’s recent works, the book—published to accompany her solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London in fall 2022—includes illustrations of earlier paintings, as well as an intimate glimpse into Sherald’s process and practice through a series of in-studio photographs. Newly commissioned texts include an art historical analysis of the artist’s work by Jenni Sorkin; a meditation on the politics and aesthetics of Sherald's portraiture by cultural scholar Kevin Quashie; and a conversation between Sherald and acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Amy Sherald was born in Georgia in 1973 and received her MFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004. She has been included in countless group shows at galleries and museums worldwide as well as the subject of solo exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, among others. Sherald lives in Baltimore and New Jersey.

A comprehensive compendium of artists and writers confronting questions of Black identity, activism and social responsibility in the age of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, based on the landmark traveling exhibition

What is “Black art”? This question was posed and answered time and time again between 1960 and 1980 by artists, curators and critics deeply affected by this turbulent period of radical social and political upheaval in America. Rather than answering in one way, they argued for radically different ideas of what “Black art” meant.

Across newspapers and magazines, catalogs, pamphlets, interviews, public talks and panel discussions, a lively debate emerged between artists and others to address profound questions of how Black artists should or should not deal with politics, about what audiences they should address and inspire, where they should try to exhibit, how their work should be curated, and whether there was or was not such a category as “Black art” in the first place.

Conceived as a reader connected to the landmark exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which shone a light on the vital contributions made by Black artists over two decades, this anthology collects over 200 texts from the artists, critics, curators and others who sought to shape and define the art of their time.

Exhaustively researched and edited by exhibition curator Mark Godfrey, who provides the substantial introduction, and Allie Biswas, included are rare and out-of-print texts from artists and writers, as well as texts published for the first time ever.

A perennial New York Times bestseller and enduring classic of modern American culture.

“Each offering from bell hooks is a major event, as she has so much to give us.” ― Maya Angelou

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.

“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Provocative and intensely personal, renowned scholar, cultural critic and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society stricken with lovelessness--not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity. People are divided, she declares, by society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. 

In this landmark book, bell hooks explores the question “What is love” Her answers strike at both the mind and heart. Disputing that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation. All About Love is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly love and community can change hearts and minds for the better.

From award-winning actor, producer, and director Eriq La Salle comes the final installment of the Martyr Maker series where an FBI agent battling a terminal illness, alongside two NYPD detectives, must investigate a series of hate crimes and murders threatening a city on the brink of a race war.

Shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, FBI Agent Janet Maclin is facing her toughest case yet. She is assigned to help NYPD detectives, Quincy Cavanaugh and Phee Freeman who are investigating a series of gruesome hate crimes that threaten a city on the brink of a race war.

As the body count mounts, time is running out for Maclin in more ways than one.

"Beautiful and heartbreaking." ― Walter Mosley

"An amazing read!" ― S.A. Cosby

"Lush and brutal, a poem hiding out as a novel." ― Rachel Howzell Hall

Redemption isn't given. It's fought for. 

After years of violence, Solomon leaves the brutal backdrop of New York and its underworld to find peace in California where he settles for the quiet life of a gardener defined by routine, restraint, and a fragile kind of peace that had alluded him. Having been a former child soldier, mercenary, and hit man, he is determined to put his past behind him. But as violence erupts on the grounds he tends, his hard-won tranquility shatters when he encounters a young boy named Gaby whose life is in danger.

Protecting the child pulls Solomon back into a world he swore he'd buried. As they set out on an unexpected journey, hunted by men who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Solomon must confront not only the threat closing in but the darkness he carries within.

Propulsive and deeply human,Laws of Solomon is a story of redemption, found family, and the cost of choosing compassion in a brutal world. In saving Gaby, Solomon may finally discover whether peace is something a man like him can earn―or something he must sacrifice everything to protect.

Eriq La Salle brings readers into the world of his acclaimed Martyr Maker series with this standalone novel―the perfect entry point for readers new to La Salle's writing.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.

“A powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?”—The New York Times
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE

There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
 
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
 
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, this collection is a celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save.

With essays and poems by:

Emily Atkin • Xiye Bastida • Ellen Bass • Colette Pichon Battle • Jainey K. Bavishi • Janine Benyus • adrienne maree brown • Régine Clément • Abigail Dillen • Camille T. Dungy • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Joy Harjo • Katharine Hayhoe • Mary Annaïse Heglar • Jane Hirshfield • Mary Anne Hitt • Ailish Hopper • Tara Houska, Zhaabowekwe • Emily N. Johnston • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Naomi Klein • Kate Knuth • Ada Limón • Louise Maher-Johnson • Kate Marvel • Gina McCarthy • Anne Haven McDonnell • Sarah Miller • Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset • Susanne C. Moser • Lynna Odel • Sharon Olds • Mary Oliver • Kate Orff • Jacqui Patterson • Leah Penniman • Catherine Pierce • Marge Piercy • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Varshini • Prakash • Janisse Ray • Christine E. Nieves Rodriguez • Favianna Rodriguez • Cameron Russell • Ash Sanders • Judith D. Schwartz • Patricia Smith • Emily Stengel • Sarah Stillman • Leah Cardamore Stokes • Amanda Sturgeon • Maggie Thomas • Heather McTeer Toney • Alexandria Villaseñor • Alice Walker • Amy Westervelt • Jane Zelikova

Amy Sherald’s work, life, and significance for American art, as revealed in her powerful figurative paintings of Black subjects
 
Bringing together nearly all of her artwork to date, this lavishly illustrated volume situates the work of Amy Sherald (b. 1973) within the context of American realist and figurative painting. Encompassing the full arc of her career, from her poetic early works to the distinctive figure paintings and portraits that have become her hallmark, Amy Sherald: American Sublime unfolds her method of selecting individuals she meets on the street and using facial expression, body language, and clothing choices to create paintings that transcend portraiture and expand the canon of American art. Essays by curators Sarah Roberts and Rhea Combs; poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander; artist Dario Calmese; and renowned scholar Deborah Willis contextualize and illuminate Sherald’s creation of a new form of imaginative portraiture. Often depicting her subjects’ skin in gray monochrome, surrounded by few markers of place, time, or context beyond the clothes they wear, Sherald challenges the assumption that Black life is inextricably bound with struggle, creating images that engage in more expansive thinking about race and representation and the wide-open possibilities and complexities of every individual. Whether a passerby or the former first lady Michelle Obama, Sherald’s subjects are at ease with themselves, the world, and one another.
 
Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(November 16, 2024–March 9, 2025)
 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
(April 9–August 3, 2025)
 
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
(September 2025–January 2026)

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Black Girl Magic continues and deepens the work of the first BreakBeat Poets anthology by focusing on some of the most exciting Black women writing today. This anthology breaks up the myth of hip-hop as a boys’ club, and asserts the truth that the cypher is a feminine form.

Poet and vocalist Jamila Woods was raised in Chicago, and graduated from Brown University, where she earned a BA in Africana Studies and Theatre & Performance Studies. Influenced by Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks, much of her writing explores blackness, womanhood, and the city of Chicago.

Mahogany L. Browne is a Cave Canem and Poets House alumna and the author of several books including Smudge and Redbone. She directs the poetry program of the Nuyorican Poets Café.

Idrissa Simmonds is a fiction writer and poet. Her work has appeared in Black Renaissance Noire, The Caribbean Writer, Fourteen Hills Press, and elsewhere. She is the 2014 winner of the Crab Creek Review poetry contest, and a New York Foundation for the Arts and Commonwealth Short Story Award Finalist.