Main entry:

Cole, Teju, author.

Title & Author:

Known and strange things : essays / Teju Cole.

Publication:

New York : Random House, [2016]

Description:

xvi, 393 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm

Notes:
Consists of various essays some previously published in various journals and periodicals on art, literature, and politics.
Consists of various essays on art, literature, and politics, some previously published in various journals and periodicals.
Includes bibliographical references.
Preface. -- Section I. Reading things: Black body -- Natives on the boat -- Housing Mr. Biswas -- Tomas Tranströmer -- Poetry of the disregarded -- Always returning -- A better quality of agony -- Derek Walcott -- Aciman's alibis -- Double negative -- In place of thought -- A conversation with Aleksandar Hemon. -- Section II. Seeing things: Unnamed lake -- Wangechi Mutu -- Age, actually -- An African Caesar -- Peter Sculthorpe -- Red shift -- John Berger -- Portrait of a lady -- Object lesson -- Saul Leiter -- A true picture of black skin -- Gueorgui Pinkhassov -- Perfect and unrehearsed -- Disappearing Shanghai -- Touching strangers -- Finders keepers -- Google's macchia -- The atlas of affect -- Memories of things unseen -- Death in the browser tab -- The unquiet sky -- Against neutrality. -- Section III. Being there: Far away from here -- Home strange home -- The reprint -- A reader's war -- Madmen and specialists -- What it is -- Kofi Awoonor -- Captivity -- In Alabama -- Bad laws -- Brazilian earth -- Angels in winter -- Shadows in São Paulo -- Two weeks -- The island -- Reconciliation -- Break it down -- The white savior industrial complex -- "Perplexed ... perplexed" -- A piece of the wall. -- Section IV. Epilogue: Blind spot. -- Acknowledgments.

Summary:

"With this collection of more than fifty pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W.G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram."--Amazon.com.
"With this collection of more than fifty pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W.G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram. Cole brings us new considerations of James Baldwin in the age of Black Lives Matter; the African American photographer Roy DeCarava, who, forced to shoot with film calibrated exclusively for white skin tones, found his way to a startling and true depiction of black subjects; and (in an essay that inspired both praise and pushback when it first appeared) the White Savior Industrial Complex, the system by which African nations are sentimentally aided by an America "developed on pillage." Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole's wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities, and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames."--Publisher's description.

ISBN:

9780812989786 (acid-free paper)
0812989783 (acid-free paper)
(ebook)
9780812989793

Subject:

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987 Criticism and interpretation.
Baldwin, James, 1924-1987.
Essays.
Aesthetics History and criticism.
Literature History and criticism.
Politics and literature History and criticism.
African American photographers History and criticism.
African American authors History and criticism.
African American politicians History and criticism.
Black lives matter movement.
Essais (Genre littéraire)
Littérature Histoire et critique.
Politique et littérature Histoire et critique.
Photographes noirs américains Histoire et critique.
Écrivains noirs américains Histoire et critique.
Politiciens noirs américains Histoire et critique.
Mouvement Black Lives Matter.
essays.
Aesthetics.
African American authors.
African American photographers.
African American politicians.
Diplomatic relations.
Literature.
Politics and literature.
Africa Foreign relations History and criticism.
Afrique Relations extérieures Histoire et critique.
Africa.
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Essays^LITERARY COLLECTIONS / American / African American^BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Artists, Architects, Photographers.

Form/genre:

Essay
Essays.
essays.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Essais.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 294001
Call No.: BIB 239275
Status: External loan