Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America--An Anthology - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345383176 ISBN 13: 9780345383174

Publisher: One World/Ballantine, 1996

Synopsis

"[AN] OUTSTANDING COLLECTION...
The powerful opening excerpt by Frederick Douglass evokes his boyhood as a slave, and the collection closes with an eloquent discussion of the race problem today by Cornel West. A distinguished addition to black studies."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The purpose of this extraordinary anthology is made abundantly clear by the editors' stated intention: "to create a living mosaic of essays and stories in which Black men can view themselves, and be viewed without distortion." In this, they have succeeded brilliantly. Brotherman contains more than one hundred and fifty selections, some never before published--from slave narratives, memoirs, social histories, novels, poems, short stories, biographies, autobiographies, position papers, and essays.
Brotherman books us passage to the world that Black men experience as adolescents, lovers, husbands, fathers, workers, warriors, and elders. On this journey they encounter pain, confusion, anger, and love while confronting the life-threatening issues of race, sex, and politics--often as strangers in a strange land. The first collection of its kind, Brotherman gathers together a multitude of voices that add a new, unforgettable chapter to American cultural identity.

About this title

From the Publisher:

This was one of the most fulfillng projects I've ever worked on. Men (and women)
responded strongly to the book and I was certainly not surprised when it became a
multi-award winner. It won the American Library Association Black Caucus Award
and the American Book Award sponsored by the Christopher Columbus Foundation.
Both were well deserved.

Beverly Robinson
Ballantine Books

From Booklist:

The editors have swept widely but sensitively through African American literature, producing not only a forceful anthology but the first one devoted exclusively to male writings. More than 100 entries appear, some in full text, others in excerpted form (and some never previously published). Fiction is matched in eloquence and effect by nonfiction pieces, including slave narratives, autobiographies and biographies, and essays and poems. New voices stand strongly next to those of the past; famous individuals don't overshadow those who are less so. One minute, readers will believe they have read the most vigorous selection--Paul Laurence Dunbar's short story, "The Lynching of Jube Benson," for example--but then readers will turn to another page to find something that sends their mind reeling even further--for instance, the excerpt from Wallace Terry's book Bloods, an oral history of black veterans in the Vietnam War. For all literature collections. Brad Hooper

About this edition

• Publisher: One World/Ballantine
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0345383176
• ISBN 13: 9780345383174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 960
• Editor: Herb Boyd, Robert L. Allen