Ishmael Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist celebrated for his satirical works. While his writing often focuses on neglected African and African-American perspectives, his advocacy broadly champions all overlooked viewpoints, regardless of cultural origin. Reed consistently challenges American political culture, exposing political and cultural oppression. His energetic approach has established him as a prominent and often controversial voice in contemporary literature.
In Ishmael Reed's Conjugating Hindi, stories, histories and myths of different cultures are mixed and sampled. Modern issues like gentrification addressed. It is the closest that a fiction writer has gotten to the hip-hop form on the page.Once again, Ishmael Reed has pioneered a new form. One that crosses all borders.
This collection of satirical essays offers a sharp and humorous critique of Barack Obama's presidency, tackling the racial tensions he faced during his campaign and early tenure. With provocative titles like "Ma and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man" and "Crazy Rev. Wright," the essays explore themes of race and politics, while previously unpublished pieces delve into controversies surrounding figures like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Tiger Woods, providing a candid reflection on the complexities of race in America.
America's greatest living writer returns with a hilarious, scathing satire of the MAGA mindset.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, as the violence in Washington D.C. and state capitals around the country shines a light on the persistent unrest among a certain kind of American. A perfect counterpart to last year's The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda , in which Reed investigated the darkness at the heart of Obama-era liberal piety, Life Among the Aryans is a searing, hopeful and above all joyous investigation of what it meant to live through the last four years (and what will come next).
Including material and photographs not included in most of the 100 other books about the champion, Ishmael Reed's The Complete Muhammad Ali is more than just a biography--it is a fascinating portrait of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. An honest, balanced portrayal of Ali, the book includes voices that have been omitted from other books. It charts Ali's evolution from Black Nationalism to a universalism, but does not discount the Nation of Islam and Black Nationalism's important influence on his intellectual development. Filipino American author Emil Guillermo speaks about how "The Thrilla' In Manila" brought the Philippines into the 20th century. Fans of Muhammad Ali, boxing fans, and those interested in modern African American history and the Nation of Islam will be fascinated by this biography by an accomplished American author.
Ishmael Reed's classic Neo-HooDoo Western, a classic from the Dalkey catalog, is presented here in a long-awaited republication with a new introduction.
"This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 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, and absorbing drama, and a brilliant rallying cry for justice."--Back cover
Deep in the American South, 'land of the hunted and the haunted, ' three young slaves have broken free. But they have their former master hot on their heels, and they must outrun, outwit, or outgun him and his personal 'CIA' if they are to secure their freedom--all while dodging the bullets of the Civil War raging on around them. When the three men part ways, the adventure begins- the first, 40's, buys up a huge number of arms in readiness for a final showdown; the second, Stray Leechfield, sells his body for pornographic flicks; while the third, Raven Quickskill, hero, poet, heartbreaker, swigs champagne on a non-stop jumbo jet to Canada. Flight to Canada is fun, pacey, adventurous, and touched by Reed's taste for the absurd. Reed takes us on a wild ride through a nineteenth-century Virginia that looks a lot like the West today, littered with everything from Xerox copiers to jumbo jets, and casts an unsettling sideways look at history, race and the American media.
When Ishmael Reed wrote The Terrible Twos about the American infantile need for instant gratification, he could not have realized that during the week of June 29, 2020, journalist Nicole Wallace would be referring to a president as a "toddler." Part science fiction, part Washington Novel and part Christmas Novel, The Terrible Fours follows The Terrible Twos (1982) and The Terrible Threes (1989). Some characters have been dropped and some of the principals are back. St. Nicholas is here, but his sidekick Black Peter, who appeared in The Terrible Twos, has been shelved to the Epilog. In The Terrible Threes, former president Dean Clift, who was removed from office after a bizarre television address, disappeared with his entourage while en route to resume his presidency after Supreme Court justice, Nola Payne, casts the vote that declared his removal from office under the 25th Amendment unconstitutional. Televangelist Clement-Jones still runs the White House and continues to humiliate his hand-picked president Jesse Hatch whom he is blackmailing. "The Rapture," that Jones and figurehead president Jesse Hatch promised, hasn't arrived. Realizing that the Catholic Church has been losing
'A great writer' James Baldwin 'Part vision, part satire, part farce ... a wholly original, unholy cross between the craft of fiction and witchcraft' The New York Times A plague is spreading across 1920s America, racing from New Orleans to New York. It's an epidemic of free expression, carried by black artists, and its symptoms are an uncontrollable urge to dance, sing, laugh and jive. The state will stop at nothing to suppress the outbreak, but, deep in the heart of Harlem, private eye and Vodum priest Papa LaBas has other ideas - and, possibly, the key to everything. A freewheeling, explosive blend of jazz, ragtime, ancient myth, magic and conspiracy thriller, this anarchic postmodern classic is a satire for our times.
