The Fire This Time

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Fire This Time by Jesmyn Ward, read by Cherise Boothe, Michael Early, Kevin R Free, Korey Jackson and Susan Spain.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Edited by two-time National Book Award winner and Women’s Prize shortlisted-author Jesmyn Ward, a timely and groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race in America

In this bestselling collection of essays and poems, Jesmyn Ward gathers a new generation of writers and thinkers to speak on race. From Claudia Rankine to Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Kiese Laymon to Carol Anderson, these voices shine a light on the darkest corners of American history, wrestle with the struggles the country faces today and imagine a better future.

Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, The Fire This Time considers the black experience in modern America. Significant progress has been made in the fifty years since Baldwin's essays were published, but America is a long distance away from a post-racial society – a truth that must be confronted if the country is to continue to work towards change.

Baldwin's 'fire next time' is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about. Sage, urgent and impassioned, this is an essential collection edited by one of America’s greatest writers.

Critics Review

A harrowing yet hopeful book about race
Observer
A stirring anthology that takes more cues from Baldwin than just its title ... Every poem and essay in Ward’s volume remains grounded in a harsh reality
New York Review of Books
Mixing anecdote, humour, passion, fear, anger and a call to arms, it’s a powerful read
Stylist
Powerful ... Alive with purpose, conviction and intellect
New York Times
To Baldwin’s call we now have a choral response – one that should be read by every one of us committed to the cause of equality and freedom
Jelani Cobb, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University
This is a book to pick up and tuck under our hearts to see what we can build
Nikki Giovanni, poet
With this gorgeous chorus - Ward has done the same [as her ancestors]: she has created a world, a space, the one she, herself, was seeking. A new type of belonging, a new place to belong, is exactly what she has given us
LA Review of Books
This is a book that 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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