Name: The Fire This Time
Rating: 4.363636363636363 (22 reviews)
ISBN: 9781501126345

Jesmyn Ward

"Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this ... collection of essays and poems about race from ... voices of her generation and our time"--

A New Generation Speaks about Race

The Fire This Time

Jennifer

I haven't read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time yet (shameful I know) so I wasn't sure how much of this book I was going to really understand but I will say there were some stand out chapters/essays: Part 1: "Lonely in America" - forgotten slave burial sites in New Hampshire "Where Do We Go From Here?" - eloquently stated prose on where we are in America today Chapter on Phillis Wheatley - I learned so much about the first published African American female poet. I remember learning about her in first grade but never did I know about her husband and life before now. "White Rage" - makes similar points to the Netflix movie "13th" Part 2: "Blacker Than You" - I appreciate it when Asian Americans get a shoutout and general pop culture references. "Black and Blue" - walking (literally just walking) while black in different regions of the US from a first person perspective...just, wow. I could go on but basically all the chapters in Part 2 really resonated with me. Part 3: Appropriately entitled "Jubilee", Part 3 encourages the reader to feel hopeful for the future to build a better world so that "your generation of brown and black men, women, and children will be the last who will experience all this." Once I read The Fire Next Time, I'll probably give this a 5 star rating.

Ellie Younger

This series of essays was often difficult to read, but the stories have to be told, and I have to listen. This is an important collection that shed light to many things that I- as a white person, have not experienced. I learned more about the tragedies of this world as I read beautiful essays, letters and poems. It is so important to educate ourselves on injustice and then work to make change!!!

kayla 

Jonathan Grunert

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Edited by two-time National Book Award winner and Women's Prize shortlisted-author Jesmyn Ward, a timely and groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race in America In this bestselling collection of essays and poems, Jesmyn Ward gathers a new generation of writers and thinkers to speak on race. From Claudia Rankine to Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Kiese Laymon to Carol Anderson, these voices shine a light on the darkest corners of American history, wrestle with the struggles the country faces today and imagine a better future. Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, The Fire This Time considers the black experience in modern America. Significant progress has been made in the fifty years since Baldwin's essays were published, but America is a long distance away from a post-racial society – a truth that must be confronted if the country is to continue to work towards change. Baldwin's 'fire next time' is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about. Sage, urgent and impassioned, this is an essential collection edited by one of America's greatest writers.

The Fire This Time A New Generation Speaks about Race

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