American Essays

Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as “a...

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. Over the past decade, Camonghne Felix has been at the center of American politics, working in strategy, communications, and as a speechwriter. Throughout it...

From New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa, a sweeping human history of El Paso, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town. El Paso has been called the “Ellis Island” of America’s southern border, a mountain pass cum border town cum bifurcated...

Hailed as "astonishingly powerful" by The New York Times, and "written perfectly" by The Washington Post, Joe Klein's #1 bestseller, Primary Colors, was the most-talked-about political novel of the past century. Now acclaimed journalist and author Joe Klein returns with another brilliant and...

Innocence is lost to unforgettable experience in these brilliant stories by E. L. Doctorow, as full of mystery and meaning as any of the longer works by this American master. In “The Writer in the Family,” a young man learns the difference between lying and literature after he is induced...

The first major book for writers to more effectively engage with complex socio-political issues—a critical first step in creating social change Writers are witnesses and scribes to society’s conscience but writing about social issues in the twenty-first century requires a new, sharper...

An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and...

An undocumented activist and a social scientist come together to tally of the structural costs of undocumented life An inhumane math pervades this country: even as our government extracts labor and often taxes from undocumented workers, it excludes these same workers from its social safety net...

This collection contains 21 reviews of artistic events and artifacts which originally appeared between 1877 and 1889. Clearly on display is Wilde's comprehensive knowledge of contemporary painting, fashion, and literature, as well as his capacity to create paradoxical aphorisms, which is such a feature of more substantial works like The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews by a celebrated cultural critic “Jamilah Lemieux is one of the most important feminist writers of the twenty-first century.”—Brittney Cooper...

How hard-working individuals have kept abortion afloat in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s destruction, and the continued help needed if we want to sustain it When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many feared it meant the end of abortion access in the United States. Yet the...

A vital path home. Employing African epistemologies and an embodied African beingness, this book embraces the revelation and miracle of Blackness. Creating a world worthy of our children requires recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life. This book is not written for...

Una denuncia innovadora y urgente desde la primera línea del "trabajo sucio", el trabajo que la sociedad considera esencial pero moralmente comprometido. Pilotos de drones que llevan a cabo asesinatos selectivos. Inmigrantes indocumentados que trabajan en los mataderos industriales. Guardias...

On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India was adopted formally and came into effect. Its preamble set out in brief the enlightened values it enshrined and hoped to engender. In a radical shift from mainstream constitutional history, this book establishes Dr B.R. Ambedkar's irrefutable...

"Nací y fui un hombre de color, no lo olvidéis, pero viví como una mujer de color durante diecisiete años." Henry Cebolla Shackleton es un pícaro niño esclavo en cuyo camino se cruza el legendario abolicionista John Brown, «el más americano de todos nosotros», en palabras de Henry David...

“A provocative extension of Jefferson’s original plan.”—Kirkus Reviews Thomas Jefferson believed that every generation of Americans should rewrite our Constitution from scratch—to mirror the progress of the human mind and, most of all, to maintain the revolutionary spirit. He would be...

Was Savarkar really a co-conspirator in the Gandhi murder? Was there a pogrom against a particular community after Gandhi's assassination? Decades after his death, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar continues to uniquely influence India's political scenario. An optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in...

This entertaining guide to some of the best short novels of all time, from a bestselling historian, is the “perfect gift for busy bibliophiles” (BookPage). Experience the joys of literature with this this “exciting guide to all that the world of fiction has to offer” (The New York Times...

Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. Focusing on chefs, home cooks, and food stall owners, the book questions: What does it mean to belong, and what does belonging in a new place look like in the foods carried over from the old country?

From the National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment and Missionaries, an astonishing fever graph of the effects of twenty years of war in a brutally divided America. When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself a part of the community...