A wide-ranging collection of essays from a celebrated master of the form.
"Darkness is not empty," writes Teju Cole in Black Paper, a collection of essays that meditate on what it means to keep our humanity-and witness the humanity of others-in a time of darkness. Cole is well-known as a master of the essay form, and in Black Paper he is writing at the peak of his skill, as he models how to be closely attentive to experience-to not just see and take in, but to think critically about what we are seeing and not seeing.
Wide-ranging in their subject matter, the essays are connected by ethical questions about what it means to be human and what it means to bear witness, recognizing how our individual present is informed by a collective past. Cole's writings in Black Paper approach the fractured moment of our history through a constellation of interrelated concerns: confrontation with unsettling art, elegies both public and private, the defense of writing in a time of political upheaval, the role of the color black in the visual arts, the use of shadow in photography, and the links between literature and activism. Throughout, Cole gives us intriguing new ways of thinking about the color black and its numerous connotations. As he describes the carbon copy process in his epilogue: "Writing on the top white sheet would transfer the carbon from the black paper onto the bottom white. Black transported the meaning."
A wide-ranging collection of essays from a celebrated master of the form.
"Darkness is not empty," writes Teju Cole in Black Paper, a collection of essays that meditate on what it means to keep our humanity-and witness the humanity of others-in a time of darkness. Cole is well-known as a master of the essay form, and in Black Paper he is writing at the peak of his skill, as he models how to be closely attentive to experience-to not just see and take in, but to think critically about what we are seeing and not seeing.
Wide-ranging in their subject matter, the essays are connected by ethical questions about what it means to be human and what it means to bear witness, recognizing how our individual present is informed by a collective past. Cole's writings in Black Paper approach the fractured moment of our history through a constellation of interrelated concerns: confrontation with unsettling art, elegies both public and private, the defense of writing in a time of political upheaval, the role of the color black in the visual arts, the use of shadow in photography, and the links between literature and activism. Throughout, Cole gives us intriguing new ways of thinking about the color black and its numerous connotations. As he describes the carbon copy process in his epilogue: "Writing on the top white sheet would transfer the carbon from the black paper onto the bottom white. Black transported the meaning."
List of Illustrations
Preface
Part One
After Caravaggio
Part Two: Elegies
Room 406
Mama’s Shroud
Four Elegies
Two Elegies
A Letter to John Berger
A Quartet for Edward Said
Part Three: Shadows
Gossamer World: On Santu Mofokeng
An Incantation for Marie Cosindas
Pictures in the Aftermath
Shattered Glass
What Does It Mean to Look at This?
A Crime Scene at the Border
Shadow Cabinet: On Kerry James Marshall
Nighted Color: On Lorna Simpson
The Blackness of the Panther
Restoring the Darkness
Part Four: Coming to Our Senses
Experience
Epiphany
Ethics
Part Five: In a Dark Time
A Time for Refusal
Resist, Refuse
Through the Door
Passages North
On Carrying and Being Carried
Epilogue
Black Paper
Acknowledgments
Index
Teju Cole is a novelist, photographer, critic, curator, and the author of six books, which include Open City, Blind Spot, and, most recently, his photobook Fernweh. He was the photography critic of the New York Times Magazine from 2015 until 2019. A 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard.
"He takes in news from African countries and American cities; but
also, by necessity and interest, Asian, European and Latin American
culture and history. In short, the world belongs to Cole and is
thornily and gloriously allied with his curiosity and his
personhood."-- "Claudia Rankine, New York Times Book Review, on
Known and Strange Things" "The forms of resistance depend on the
culture they resist, and in our era of generalizations and
approximations and sloppiness, Teju Cole's precise and vivid
observation and description is an antidote and a joy. This is a
book written with a scalpel, a microscope, and walking shoes, full
of telling details and sometimes big surprises."-- "Rebecca Solnit,
on Known and Strange Things" "[Teju Cole is] an emissary for our
best selves. He is sampling himself for our benefit, hoping for
enlightenment, and seeking to provide pleasure to us through his
art. May his realm expand."
-- "Norman Rush, New York Review of Books, on Known and Strange
Things" "The places he can go, you feel, are just about
limitless."
-- "Dwight Garner, New York Times, on Every Day Is for the Thief"
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