Black Paper // Writing in a Dark Time (Paperback)

A profound book of essays from a celebrated master of the form.

Darkness is not empty, writes Teju Cole inBlack Paper, a book that meditates on what it means to sustain our humanityand witness the humanity of othersin a time of darkness. One of the most celebrated essayists of his generation, Cole here plays variations on the essay form, modeling ways to attend to experiencenot just to take in but to think critically about what we sense and what we dont.

Wide-ranging but thematically unified, the essays address ethical questions about what it means to be human and what it means to bear witness, recognizing how our individual present is informed by a collective past. Coles writings inBlack Paperapproach the fractured moment of our history through a constellation of interrelated concerns: confrontation with unsettling art, elegies both public and private, the defense of writing in a time of political upheaval, the role of the color black in the visual arts, the use of shadow in photography, and the links between literature and activism. Throughout, Cole gives us intriguing new ways of thinking about blackness and its numerous connotations. As he describes the carbon-copy process in his epilogue: Writing on the top white sheet would transfer the carbon from the black paper onto the bottom white sheet. Black transported the meaning.

Teju Coleis a novelist, photographer, critic, curator, and the author of seven books, which includeOpen City,Blind Spot, andGolden Apple of the Sun. He was the photography critic of theNew York Times Magazinefrom 2015 until 2019. A 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard.

• Publisher:University of Chicago Press; First edition (January 5, 2023)
• Language:English
• Paperback:288 pages
• ISBN-10:0226823865
• ISBN-13:9780226823867
• Item Weight:1.11 pounds
• Dimensions:5.5 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches