Tales

Description

These 16 artful and nuanced stories fall into two parts: the first nine concern themselves with the sensibility of a hip, perceptive young black man in white America. The last seven stories endeavour to place that same man within the context of his awareness of and participation in a rapidly emerging and powerfully felt negritude. They deal, it might be said, with the black man in black America. Yet these tales are not social tracts, but absolutely masterful fiction - provocative, witty and, at times, bitter and aggressive.

Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1934--2014) was the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named poet laureate of New Jersey by the New Jersey Commission for the Humanities, from 2002--2004. His short story collection Tales of the Out & the Gone (Akashic Books) was a New York Times Editors' Choice and won a 2008 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He is also the author of Home: Social Essays, Black Music, and The System of Dante's Hell, among other works.