Bøker av Ishmael Reed

"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.

The definitive monograph of Sam Gilliam one of the great innovators in post-war American painting An African American artist in the nation's capital at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Sam Gilliam blazed a trail with his singular artistic vision. Gilliam emerged from the Washington, DC art scene in the mid 1960s with works that disrupted established artistic norms and styles.  Relentlessly experimental and inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, Gilliam's lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials. This book, made in close collaboration with Gilliam's estate, is the first to comprehensively survey the breadth of his extraordinary career, and features never-before-seen archival materials and insightful newly commissioned texts that shine light on the artist, his life, and his work, together with examples of Gilliam's work spanning five decades.

The controversial new play from Ishmael Reed, Life Among the Aryans follows John Shaw and Michael Mulvaney, two modern MAGA white supremacists as they leech off their wives, take orders from grifting Leader Matthews, and plot a unique way around the encroaching societal progress they fear will leave them in the dust. Full of page-turning dialogue, unexpected twists and hilarious asides, this is the latest urgent must-read from the greatest living American writer. Originally performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Life Among the Aryans has only grown in relevance since.

In Ishmael Reed's Conjugating Hindi, stories, histories and myths of different cultures are mixed and sampled. Modern issues like gentrification addressed. It is the closest that a fiction writer has gotten to the hip-hop form on the page.Once again, Ishmael Reed has pioneered a new form. One that crosses all borders.

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 "e;Trial of the Century"e; 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, "e;O. J. has become a metaphor for things wrong with culture and politics."e; 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 "e;post-race"e; America.

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.