Distributed Presses

Donato Ndongo and Michael Ugarte will be appearing at the Gaines-Oldham Black Culture Center, 813 Virginia Avenue, Columbia, Missouri on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus to celebrate the release of Ndongo's third novel El metro.

The event takes place on Wednesday, November 14th, from 3:00pm to 5:00pm (CST).

Spanish Literature and Culture Professor Benita Sampedro of Hofstra University will also give a guest lecture.

A reception will follow.

Swan Isle will be publishing Ndongo's Shadows of Your Black Memory this fall.

Visit the Gaines-Oldham Black Culture Center

Learn More about the Shadows of Your Black Memory, forthcoming from Swan Isle

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Posted to Author Events | Black Studies | Fiction | Swan Isle

John Corbett, co-editor of the WhiteWalls Sun Ra titles The Wisdom of Sun Ra, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, and the forthcoming Traveling the Spaceways, recently wrote an article on Sun Ra for Design Observer. Corbett provides an eloquent introduction to Sun Ra and his Arkestra, mapping the Chicago spaces inhabited by Ra and his collaborators as they developed the El Saturn label and launched the Arkestra.

Visit Design Observer

Learn More about The Wisdom of Sun Ra

Learn More about Pathways to Unknown Worlds

Learn More about Traveling the Spaceways

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Black Studies | Music | Whitewalls

Scott Verrastro recently reviewed Pathways to Unknown Worlds from WhiteWalls in JazzTimes, calling it, ". . . a fascinating array of early Sun Ra and El Saturn artifacts. . . ." Verrastro contextualizes the collection within the universe of Sun Ra, reminding readers new to Sun Ra that his Afro-Futurist mythology is both serious and full of humor.

We agree with Verrastro: "To these eyes, too much Sun Ra epehemera is never enough. . . ."

Read the Review

Learn More about the Book

Posted by SSD at 01:15 PM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Black Studies | History | Music | Whitewalls

Adrian Searle recently reviewed the exhibition behind Kodwo Eshun's upcoming book Ghosts of Songs: The Art of the Black Audio Film Collective in the Guardian. The exhibition is presently showing at Liverpool's FACT center.

Searle reviews the history of the Black Audio Film Collective and its penchant for political discussion and debate:

The collective was heavily informed by film and psychoanalytic theory, by political discussion and debate. It is salutory to note how unfashionable these are, however much intense theorising there is in the exhibition catalogue. Sadly, much of it is likely to remain unread. Perhaps the most significant achievement of the group was the formulation of a poetic, a tone of voice, a particular kind of filmic space that resisted categorisation.

He also notes Eshun's commentary :

Kodwo Eshun, the group's most compelling commentator, writes that they "projected a stance of high seriousness with seductive stylishness." Stylishness could be serious too, and they always carried their seriousness with something much more than style.

Learn More about the Book

Read the Review

Visit FACT

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Black Studies | Film and Media | Liverpool University Press | Reviews

Lucía Charún-Illescas' Malambo was recently reviewed by Miriam DeCosta-Willis, Ph.D. in the Fall 2006 issue (No. 10) of PALARA: Publication of the Afro Latin American Research Association. Both Charún and translator Emmanuel Harris II receive praise:

This is an important novel because it is the first work of fiction by an Afro-Peruvian woman, and it is one of very few Afro-Hispanic novels that have been translated into English. . . . Smooth, fluid prose. . . . An excellent translation, which captures the rhythm and flavor of an important work of art. For although it is a fictional account of Afro-Peruvian life in colonial Peru, Malambo calls into question hegemonic assumptions about Spanish American history by underscoring the role that African-descended people played in shaping that history.

Learn More about the Book

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Posted to Black Studies | Fiction | Literature | Swan Isle

In connection with The Wisdom of Sun Ra, WhiteWalls and John Corbett have teamed up with the Hyde Park Arts Center for an exhibition, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, and series of events, Travelling the Spaceways. The exhibition and events run until January 14th, 2007.

There is simply too much to list here: screenings, curator talks, a symposium, performances, musicians, artists, rock stars.

Learn about Pathways to Unknown Worlds and Traveling the Spaceways at the Hyde Park Arts Center

Learn More about The Wisdom of Sun Ra

Posted by SSD at 09:33 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Black Studies | Books for the News | Chicago | Music | Whitewalls