Mumbo Jumbo

Mumbo Jumbo PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453287973
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book

Book Description
DIVDIVIshmael Reed’s inspired fable of the ragtime era, in which a social movement threatens to suppress the spread of black culture—hailed by Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred greatest books of the Western canon/divDIV In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the “Jes Grew” epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they’ll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a “Talking Android,” an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak. But PaPa LaBas, a houngan voodoo priest, is determined to keep his ancient culture—including a key spiritual text—alive. /divDIV /divDIVSpanning a dizzying host of genres, from cinema to academia to mythology, Mumbo Jumbo is a lively ride through a key decade of American history. In addition to ragtime, blues, and jazz, Reed’s allegory draws on the Harlem Renaissance, the Back to Africa movement, and America’s occupation of Haiti. His style throughout is as avant-garde and vibrant as the music at its center./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div/div

Mumbo Jumbo

Mumbo Jumbo PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453287973
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book

Book Description
DIVDIVIshmael Reed’s inspired fable of the ragtime era, in which a social movement threatens to suppress the spread of black culture—hailed by Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred greatest books of the Western canon/divDIV In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the “Jes Grew” epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they’ll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a “Talking Android,” an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak. But PaPa LaBas, a houngan voodoo priest, is determined to keep his ancient culture—including a key spiritual text—alive. /divDIV /divDIVSpanning a dizzying host of genres, from cinema to academia to mythology, Mumbo Jumbo is a lively ride through a key decade of American history. In addition to ragtime, blues, and jazz, Reed’s allegory draws on the Harlem Renaissance, the Back to Africa movement, and America’s occupation of Haiti. His style throughout is as avant-garde and vibrant as the music at its center./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div/div

The Complete Muhammad Ali

The Complete Muhammad Ali PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781771860406
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Including material and photographs not included in most of the 100 other books about the champion, Ishmael Reed's The Complete Muhammad Ali is more than just a biography--it is a fascinating portrait of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. An honest, balanced portrayal of Ali, the book includes voices that have been omitted from other books. It charts Ali's evolution from Black Nationalism to a universalism, but does not discount the Nation of Islam and Black Nationalism's important influence on his intellectual development. Filipino American author Emil Guillermo speaks about how "The Thrilla' In Manila" brought the Philippines into the 20th century. Fans of Muhammad Ali, boxing fans, and those interested in modern African American history and the Nation of Islam will be fascinated by this biography by an accomplished American author.

Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Reed PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 1564785513
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book

Book Description
The award-winning plays of one of the most celebrated and innovative American writers of our time. Ishmael Reed’s career as one of our great playwrights has long been eclipsed by his other work. Here published for the first time, Reed’s plays follow the ancient tradition of using the theater as a forum in which the official versions of our history can be critiqued. Dealing with subjects that mainstream theatergoers might find disturbing—homelessness, the arbitrary entrapment of a black politician, the excesses of the radical feminist movement, the use of black conservatives to promote right-wing agendas, the exploitation of blacks and Africans as unsuspecting guinea pigs by the pharmaceutical industry, and the hypocrisy of the Christian church—Reed’s plays are a pungent antidote to the watered-down world of contemporary pop culture, where, Reed argues, minority voices remain as marginalized and stigmatized as they were a hundred years ago.

Flight to Canada

Flight to Canada PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453287981
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
DIVIshmael Reed’s parody of slave narratives—the classical literature of the African American tradition—which redefined the neo-slave genre and launched a lucrative academic industry/divDIV Some parodies are as necessary as the books they answer. Such is the case with Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed’s scathing, offbeat response to conventional anti-slavery novels such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Though Flight to Canada has been classified by some as a “post race” novel, the villains and the heroes are clear./divDIV /divDIVThree slaves are on the run from the Swille plantation. Among them, the most hotly pursued is Raven Quickskill, a poet who seeks freedom in Canada, and ultimately hopes to return and liberate others. But this particular Civil War–era landscape is littered with modern elements, from Xerox copiers to airplanes, and freely reimagines historic figures as sacred as Abraham Lincoln. A comedy flashing with insight, Flight to Canada poses serious questions about history and the complex ways that race relations in America are shaped by the past. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div

The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda

The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1576875512
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Get Book

Book Description
“That’s a lot of horse hockey, Hamilton.” Described by the New York Times as “classic activist theater” and “a cross between ‘A Christmas Carol’ and a trial at The Hague’s International Criminal Court.” "In this, his latest work, the protean Ishmael Reed--the legendary artist and prolific writer--continues to burnish his already sterling reputation by dismantling the 'Creation Myth' of the founding of the U.S., as represented in the incredibly profitable play and musical, Hamilton. Reed, a verbal acrobat of global renown, demonstrates here why he is widely considered to be the leading intellectual in the U.S. today." -Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Café, comprehensively dismantles the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. Reed uses the musical’s crimes against history to insist on a radical, cleareyed way of looking at our past and our selves. Both durable and timely, this goes beyond mere corrective – it is a meticulously researched rebuttal, an absorbing drama, and brilliant rallying cry for justice. The perfect tie-in to both the success of and backlash to Hamilton, it is the major voice in contrast to the recent movie. It captures both the earnest engagement that fans of the musical desire, as well as the exhausted disbelief of those who can’t stand it. Teachers, students and fans of drama, literature, and history will find much to love. It is written by one of America’s most respected and original writers, who is eagerly promoting it, and who is long overdue for a renaissance.

Reckless Eyeballing

Reckless Eyeballing PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9781564782373
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book

Book Description
Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all-female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the "sex-list." Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the "Flower Phantom" runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists (to the secret delight of black men).In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.

New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006

New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006 PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780786717880
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book

Book Description
Culled from four decades of writing, a volume of multicultural poetry offers insight into the MacArthur fellow's spiritual and political beliefs as well as his journeys throughout America, Japan, Africa, and other regions, in an anthology that includes pieces on such topics as war, prejudice, and George W. Bush.

The Last Days of Louisiana Red

The Last Days of Louisiana Red PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564787400
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book

Book Description
When Papa LaBas (private eye, noonday HooDoo, and hero of Reed's Mumbo Jumbo) comes to Berkeley, California, to investigate the mysterious death of Ed Yellings, owner of the Solid Gumbo Works, he finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and those militant opportunists, the Moochers. A HooDoo detective story and a comprehensive satire on the explosive politics of the '60s, The Last Days of Louisiana Red exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary American culture and race politics.

Juice!

Juice! PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564786471
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book

Book Description
In 2010, the Newseum in Washington D.C. finally obtained the suit O. J. Simpson wore in court the day he was acquitted, and it now stands as both an artifact in their "Trial of the Century" exhibit and a symbol of the American media's endless hunger for the criminal and the celebrity. This event serves as a launching point for Ishmael Reed's Juice!, a novelistic commentary on the post-Simpson American media frenzy from one of the most controversial figures in American literature today. Through Paul Blessings—a censored cartoonist suffering from diabetes—and his cohorts—serving as stand-ins for the various mediums of art—Ishmael Reed argues that since 1994, "O. J. has become a metaphor for things wrong with culture and politics." A lament for the death of print media, the growth of the corporation, and the process of growing old, Juice! serves as a comi-tragedy, chronicling the increased anxieties of "post-race" America.

The Terrible Twos

The Terrible Twos PDF Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9781564782267
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book

Book Description
Originally published in 1982 by St. Martin's Press.