Breathe by Imani Perry

Breathe by Imani Perry

2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist

2020 NAACP Image Award Nominee - Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)

Best-of Lists: Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) 25 Can't-Miss Books of 2019 (The Undefeated)

Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world.

Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love-finding beauty and possibility in life-and she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition.

Perry draws upon the ideas of figures such as James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ida B. Wells. She shares vulnerabilities and insight from her own life and from encounters in places as varied as the West Side of Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; and New England prep schools.

With original art for the cover by Ekua Holmes, Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience.

Imani Perry is a professor at Princeton University's Center for African American Studies. She is a Ph.D. holder. a J.D. and a B.A. in American Culture Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop is the author of both Harvard degrees.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780807076552
ISBN 10	0807076554
Title	Breathe
Author	Imani Perry
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Beacon Press
Year published	2019-09-17
Number of pages	176
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.