The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward (Epub)

Description

In this bestselling, widely lauded collection, Jesmyn Ward gathers our most original thinkers and writers to speak on contemporary racism and race, including Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Young, Claudia Rankine, and Honoree Jeffers. “An absolutely indispensable anthology” (Booklist, starred review), The Fire This Time shines a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestles with our current predicament, and imagines a better future.

Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, these contemporary writers reflect on the past, present, and future of race in America. We’ve made significant progress in the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essays were published, but America is a long and painful distance away from a “post-racial society”—a truth we must confront if we are to continue to work towards change. Baldwin’s “fire next time” is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about; The Fire This Time “seeks to place the shock of our own times into historical context and, most importantly, to move these times forward” (Vogue).

User’s Reviews

Review “[A] stirring anthology that takes more cues from Baldwin than just its title … every poem and essay in Ward’s volume remains grounded in a harsh reality that our nation, at large, refuses fully to confront.” —The New York Times Book Review “[A] powerful book … alive with purpose, conviction and intellect.” —The New York Times “With this gorgeous chorus — Ward has done the same [as her ancestors]: she has created a world, a space, the one she, herself, was seeking. A new type of belonging, a new place to belong, is exactly what she has given us.” —L.A. Review of Books “[W]hat The Fire This Time does best is to affirm the power of literature and its capacity for reflection and imagination, to collectively acknowledge the need for a much larger conversation, to understand these split second actions in present, past, and future tense, the way that stories impel us to do. This is a book that seeks to place the shock of our own times into historical context and, most importantly, to move these times forward.” —Vogue “The Fire This Time is a powerful, rewarding read that gets to the heart of what it means to be black in America today.” —The Root “A half century ago James Baldwin, the prophet in the American wilderness, delivered The Fire Next Time—as complex a reckoning with race, morality and human nature as we have seen. Jesmyn Ward has pulled together in this collection you now hold the incisive, sage, angry and deeply complex voices of a new generation, responding to many of the same questions that confronted us in 1963. To Baldwin’s call we now have a choral response—one that should be read by every one of us committed to the cause of equality and freedom.”—Jelani Cobb, historian “In 1963, we were poised on a precipice, intellectually, spiritually, politically primed for the change we knew had to come. Now, some half century later, we are again at the precipice. We are dismayed and disheartened to find ourselves here, aghast that the rules and players have changed but the game, somehow, is the same. What do we do, this post Civil Rights generation, in the face of the same injustice, dressed in different clothes, coded in different laws? In The Fire This Time, a new generation of black writers speak with the ‘fierce urgency of now.’”—Ayana Mathis, novelist “Fires destroy things…burns them up…makes ashes for us all…But fires also keep us warm…give us a glow to sit by…to tell ancestry stories to the children against the rhythmic crackle of history…to make love to against the glow. The generation of segregations gave us The Fire Next Time…we broke down those walls…The generation after segregation gives us the water to mix with the ashes to build…something…anything all…in the words of Margaret Walker…our own. This is a book to pick up and tuck under our hearts to see what we can build.”—Nikki Giovanni, poet “Timely contributions to an urgent national conversation.” —Kirkus Reviews “An absolutely indispensable anthology.” —Booklist (starred review) “Ward’s remarkable achievement is the gift of freshly minted perspectives on a tale that may seem old and twice told. Readers in search of conversations about race in America should start here.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Groundbreaking.” —Library Journal

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ A book like this is especially important right now. Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, the widespread national anthem protests and the recent election of a racist president, The Fire This Time digs deep into the legacy of racism in America and what it means to be black in the past, in the present and in the future.Curated by National Book Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward and dedicated to Trayvon Martin, it’s an anthology divided into three parts: Legacy, Reckoning and Jubilee.Each writer is tasked with examining what Ward calls “the ugly truths that plague us in this country.” The essays and poems contained within are deeply personal in nature, filled with sadness and hope.White people in America (myself included, of course) can never truly understand what it’s like to endure unfathomable injustices based on the color of our skin. I believe that we have a responsibility to listen to black voices and become more empathetic and aware. The Fire This Time joins Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me as as an important work of non-fiction that can help us with that. Like Coates’ book, this one wasn’t written for us (white people), but we can all become better people by reading it.

⭐ If you’re going to angle this is a follow-up to Baldwin’s classic, you better have something deep and profound to say, and say it well. This doesn’t deliver on any of those accounts. There are a couple of good essays, but overall the writing quality is mediocre and the messages not well-developed.

⭐ “The world is before you,” I want to tell my daughters, “and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.” –Edwidge Danticat “Message to My Daughters”‘The Fire This Time’ is a timely, necessary collection of essays on the varied dimensions of Blackness in the contemporary U.S. Divided into three sections–legacy (the past), reckoning (the present), and jubilee (the future)–the compilation not only dedicates time to dissecting white rage, the sickness that has shaped the U.S. since its genesis, but also gives glimpses into the interior lives Black folk lead, the brilliance, the joy, and the creativity that blossoms in Black communities in spite of racial oppression. More than a few of the essays are reprints, but this doesn’t take away from the distinctness of the overall project. My personal favorites were “‘The Dear Pledges of Our Love’: A Defense of Philis Wheatley’s Husband” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, “Da Art of Storytellin’ (a Prequel)” by Kiese Laymon, and “Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan. Jeffers seeks to show what is lost when our knowledge of Black lives is wholly shaped by white hostility; Laymon writes a beautiful tribute to his grandmother and OutKast and shows some of the non-literary modes through which Black Southerners across generations have shared their voice; Cadogan gives a wonderful description of the aesthetic, social, and political dimensions of Black bodies walking in three very different cities, Kingston, New Orleans, and NYC.Edwidge Danticat’s words in the closing essay have remained with me: “I want to look happily forward. I want to be optimistic. I want to have a dream. I want to live in jubilee. I want my daughters to feel they have the power to at least try to chance things, even in a world that resists change with more strength than they have. I want to tell them they can overcome everything, if they are courageous, resilient, and brave…But the world keeps tripping me up. My certainty keeps flailing.”

⭐ A number of different African American voices are presented in different forms. I found the poetry powerful. The reader could not help but be compassionate. I was looking for more of a call to action against racism however understanding and compassion are probably the first steps for we white folks.

⭐ The book is very successful in giving feed back and though provoking insight into the needs of the millennium life and times.

⭐ This is a really good read, the author has compiled excerpts from other authors referencing the unique African American experiences. I love how she played off James Baldwin’s, “The Fire Next Time.” Brilliant!

⭐ Solid book. Obviously nothing can surpass the original “Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin, but this was a nice effort. I recommend it. 7.5/10.

⭐ A thoughtful, moving, and important collection of essays, poems, and other heartfelt reactions to the current state of race relations in the U.S., this should become required reading for all civics and American literature scholars. (I mean that as a compliment.) As a middle-aged white dude myself, I didn’t get all the pop-culture references and some of the African-American dialectical flourishes, but I’ve come away from this book with a new, deeper understanding of what “black lives matter” truly means (in fact, that could’ve been an alternate title for this book), for James Baldwin, and for the real life experiences of people I think I know but with whom I can never fully identify. Yet the issues and perspectives raised here are universal, expressed with a righteous pride. What’s more, it’s a pleasure to spend a time in the company of such great minds and talents.

⭐ The collection of these essays are great. Different points of view surrounding the rooted subject. 🙂

⭐ This is a great collection of essays that explore the diversity of the Black experience in America. As a white reader, it was incredibly helpful and important to engage with many different voices sharing their experience of what it’s like to live as a Black American, as complex and challenging as it can be. No two pieces in this book are alike, and each brings an essential perspective to the conversation. I picked this up for a book club, and I think it’s a great choice for discussion of the state of race in America, particularly as brutality against Black people is at the forefront of public discourse. I don’t normally read book introductions (lazy, I guess?), but I read this one and am glad I did. Jesmyn Ward’s explanation of her work in assembling this collection was a helpful orientation. Ward makes it clear why this book is a necessary addition to the American catalogue.

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