Bøker av Ishmael Reed

"That's a lot of horse hockey, Hamilton." Described by the New York Times as "classic activist theater" and "a cross between 'A Christmas Carol' and a trial at The Hague's International Criminal Court." "In this, his latest work, the protean Ishmael Reed--the legendary artist and prolific writer--continues to burnish his already sterling reputation by dismantling the 'Creation Myth' of the founding of the U.S., as represented in the incredibly profitable play and musical, Hamilton. Reed, a verbal acrobat of global renown, demonstrates here why he is widely considered to be the leading intellectual in the U.S. today." -Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Café, comprehensively dismantles the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. Reed uses the musical's crimes against history to insist on a radical, cleareyed way of looking at our past and our selves. Both durable and timely, this goes beyond mere corrective - it is a meticulously researched rebuttal, an absorbing drama, and brilliant rallying cry for justice. The perfect tie-in to both the success of and backlash to Hamilton, it is the major voice in contrast to the recent movie. It captures both the earnest engagement that fans of the musical desire, as well as the exhausted disbelief of those who can't stand it. Teachers, students and fans of drama, literature, and history will find much to love. It is written by one of America's most respected and original writers, who is eagerly promoting it, and who is long overdue for a renaissance.

The definitive monograph of Sam Gilliam one of the great innovators in post-war American painting An African American artist in the nation's capital at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Sam Gilliam blazed a trail with his singular artistic vision. Gilliam emerged from the Washington, DC art scene in the mid 1960s with works that disrupted established artistic norms and styles.  Relentlessly experimental and inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, Gilliam's lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials. This book, made in close collaboration with Gilliam's estate, is the first to comprehensively survey the breadth of his extraordinary career, and features never-before-seen archival materials and insightful newly commissioned texts that shine light on the artist, his life, and his work, together with examples of Gilliam's work spanning five decades.

The controversial new play from Ishmael Reed, Life Among the Aryans follows John Shaw and Michael Mulvaney, two modern MAGA white supremacists as they leech off their wives, take orders from grifting Leader Matthews, and plot a unique way around the encroaching societal progress they fear will leave them in the dust. Full of page-turning dialogue, unexpected twists and hilarious asides, this is the latest urgent must-read from the greatest living American writer. Originally performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Life Among the Aryans has only grown in relevance since.

The poems in this collection were written between 2007 and 2020. When asked to describe the poems here, Ishmael Reed wrote: ' The poems are based on events that occurred around the house to cataclysmic space events.'

When Papa LaBas (private eye, noonday HooDoo, and hero of Reed's Mumbo Jumbo) comes to Berkeley, California, to investigate the mysterious death of Ed Yellings, owner of the Solid Gumbo Works, he finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and those militant opportunists, the Moochers. A HooDoo detective story and a comprehensive satire on the explosive politics of the '60s, The Last Days of Louisiana Red exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary American culture and race politics.

In The Terrible Threes, Ishmael Reed proves that he is one of the most innovative voices in contemporary literature. This adventure into the world of offbeat humor and on-target social criticism is a vision of America in the not-too-distant future, a portrait of a fairy-tale gone awry. This novel begins where The Terrible Twos left off, in the late 1990s, three years after President and former fashion model Dean Clift was laughed out of office, with the nation in chaos and the White House implicated in a covert operation to rid America of surplus people and the Third World of its nuclear weapons. A blend of science fiction, folklore, history, fantasy, social satire, and all out surrealist comedy, The Terrible Threes bears Reed's distinctive voice and message. At once a threat, a promise, a prediction, and the awful truth about the land of the free and the home of the brave, the tale is wholly unforgettable. Once you've seen the world through Reed's eyes, you might never see it the same way again.

Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all-female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the "e;sex-list."e; Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the "e;Flower Phantom"e; runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists (to the secret delight of black men).In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.