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The Fire - Challenging Racism: Continued - Book Club
The next Challenging Racism: Continued - Book Club will compare and contrast two books: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and The Fire This Time, a collection of essays by various authors edited by Jesmyn Ward. You can find the books at the library or in most bookstores.
NEW DATE for The Fire Next Time & The Fire This Time
Challenging Racism: Continued - Book Club
Thursday, February 27, 2020
6:30 - 7:00 pm Gathering and Sign In
7:00 - 8:50 pm Discussion
Please note, we have to finish at 8:50 pm so we can leave by 9:00 pm.
Discussion Leaders:
- Gail Perry
- Nancy Brown
Challenging Racism: Continued - Book Club
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.
“Basically the finest essay I’ve ever read. . . . Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you.” - Ta-Nehisi Coates
“So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader.” - The Atlantic
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks edited by Jesmyn Ward
A surprise New York Times bestseller, these groundbreaking essays and poems about race—collected by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward and written by the most important voices of her generation—are “thoughtful, searing, and at times, hopeful. The Fire This Time is vivid proof that words are important, because of their power to both cleanse and to clarify” (USA TODAY).
In this bestselling, widely lauded collection, Jesmyn Ward gathers our most original thinkers and writers to speak on contemporary racism and race, including Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Young, Claudia Rankine, and Honoree Jeffers. “An absolutely indispensable anthology” (Booklist, starred review), The Fire This Time shines a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestles with our current predicament, and imagines a better future.
Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, these contemporary writers reflect on the past, present, and future of race in America. We’ve made significant progress in the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essays were published, but America is a long and painful distance away from a “post-racial society”—a truth we must confront if we are to continue to work towards change. Baldwin’s “fire next time” is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about; The Fire This Time “seeks to place the shock of our own times into historical context and, most importantly, to move these times forward” (Vogue).
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