Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher

READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND

Farah Jasmine Griffin

The Profund Wisdom of Black LIfe and Literature

Read Until You Understand is a powerful testament to the enduring wisdom of Black culture and history.

Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden, and many more. Exploring these works through such themes as justice, rage, self-determination, beauty, joy, and mercy allows her to move from her aunt's love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron's "Winter in America." Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation's inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity. Farah Jasmine Griffin was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University, where she is also William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is the author of numerous books and the recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in New York.

Available products
Book Published 2021-09-14 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

[Griffin] gracefully weaves the sacred with the profane in her academic memoir... [and] makes literary analysis both accessible and relevant... Griffin's tour through the works of heavyweights gives rare - and well-deserved - attention to some of the women who have shaped the Black canon. Read more...

Griffin gives readers gifts akin to the gifts her father bestowed on her [and] provides insightful interpretations of iconic African American writers...

Griffin's effortlessly warm and engaging writing merges personal memoir with history in a way that emphasizes the oneness of the fabric of humanity. With deft fluidity, she combines archival material and memory to form a cohesive exploration into Black life. Read more...

A masterpiece... Farah Jasmine Griffin's magical words enchant and empower us like those of her towering heroes.

Deftly positioning contemporary writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jesmyn Ward alongside figures such as Phillis Wheatley... Griffin traces a lineage of Black resistance to racism. Read more...

Read Until You Understand gives us Farah Jasmine Griffin in full and mighty sail. Keen cultural analysis, storytelling, and gorgeous lyricism combine in this book that makes a genre of its own. In recollection there is profound insight here; we have a portrait of a rich Black community in place and time, and of the teachers Griffin finds in neighborhood, family, books, and music. The sounds, words, and wisdom that Black folks make also make us, and no one expresses that with more beauty and power than Griffin. This book is a talking book, a teaching book, and a treasure.

5 Questions with Farah Jasmine Griffin, Author of Read Until You Understand Read more...

An impassioned inquiry into the literary roots of Black culture... [I]nsightful, profound, and heartfelt.

Farrah Griffin's vivid, passionate, and powerful tribute to the great gifts of Black culture offers a deep dive into such fundamental human themes as freedom, justice, rage, death, beauty, and love, as lived and celebrated through her own experience, music, and creative art, and that of countless others in the community she embraces, from the legacy of Black history to her own family, her wide explorations of literature and art, and her close friendship with many artists and writers.

Black Feminist in Public: Black Life, Literature and the Black Feminist Imagination - a Conversation Between Farah Jasmine Griffin and Janell Hobson Read more...

Griffin writes with learned poignance... Perfect for literature lovers, this survey and its moving insights will stick with readers well after the last page is turned.

The insight and joy bursts from READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND authored by one of the greatest literary scholars of our time. Thank you @FJasmineG for this sage gift, for packaging all these sage gifts for us. Read more...

One of our favorite genres here at Lit Hub is the reading memoir, so we're particularly excited for Farah Jasmine Griffin's homage to the great works of Black genius that have defined her life. From Malcolm X and Toni Morrison to Marvin Gaye and Romare Bearden, Griffin - who is the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University - honors here the advice of her late father, who died when she was nine, but left a note saying, "read until you understand." Amen.

Although deeply informed by scholarship, this book has deep emotional resonances. Read more...

Slim and quietly captivating... This a life lived among books, then reinterpreted through them. Read more...

interview with N'Kosi Oates Read more...