Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal

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Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal

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Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal

Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction

A "splendid and grand collection" (Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize­-winning author of The Known World) of literary short stories portraying the lived experiences of Black Muslims grappling with faith, family, and freedom in America.


In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten "beautiful and vivid" (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award­-winning and New York Times bestselling author) stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.

In "Due North," an obedient daughter struggles to understand why she's haunted by the spirit of her recently deceased father. In "Who's Down?" a father, after a brief affair with vegetarianism, conspires with his daughter to order him a double cheeseburger. In "Candy for Hanif" a mother's routine trip to the store for her disabled son takes an unlikely turn when she reflects on a near-death experience. In "Woman in Niqab," a daughter's suspicion of her father's infidelity prompts her to wear her hair in public. In "New Mexico," a federal agent tasked with spying on a high-ranking member of the Nation of Islam grapples with his responsibilities closer to home.

With an unflinching eye for the contradictions between what these characters profess to believe and what they do, Temple Folk accomplishes the rare feat of presenting moral failures with compassion, nuance, and humor to remind us that while perfection is what many of us strive for, it's the errors that make us human.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781982191818
ISBN 10 1982191813
Title Temple Folk
Author Aaliyah Bilal
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Year published 2023-07-04
Number of pages 256
Prizes Commended for National Book Awards (Fiction) 2023
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.