Cultural Memoir

When the Titanic sank on a cold night in 1912, barely 700 people escaped with their lives. Among them were six Chinese men. Arriving in New York, these six were met with suspicion and slander. Less than 24 hours later, they were expelled from the country and vanished. When historian Steven Schwankert first stumbled across the fact that eight Chinese nationals were on-board, of whom all but two survived, he couldn’t believe that there could still be untold personal histories from the Titanic. Now, at last, their story can be told.

"My name has become a horror to all those who want slavery," declared Jean‑Jacques Dessalines as he announced the independence of Haiti, the most radical nation‑state during the Age of Revolution and the first country ever to permanently outlaw slavery. Enslaved for the first thirty years of his life, Dessalines (c. 1758–1806) joined the revolution that abolished slavery within the French colony. Then he became a general in the colonial army of the new French Republic. When it was discovered that France once again supported slavery, Dessalines declared war on his former allies.

Ice-T here offers his hip-hop generation’s Horatio Alger story: the narrative of an orphaned child who, drawn inexorably into a harrowing life of crime, ultimately turns away from the streets and, through self-discipline and a single-minded work ethic, forges a path to international fame as a musician and film-and-television star.

Tsitsi Dangarembga examines the legacy of imperialism on her own life and on every aspect of black embodied African life. This paradigm-shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an illuminating exploration of race and gender. Dangarembga recounts a painful separation from her parents as a toddler, connecting this experience to the ruptures caused in Africa by human trafficking and enslavement. Black and Female is a powerful testimony of the pervasive and long-lasting effects of racism and patriarchy that provides an ultimately hopeful vision for change.

Acclaimed archeologist and historian Karolyn Smardz Frost painstakingly resurrects Thornton and Lucie Blackburn's perilous 1830s journey from Kentucky slavery to Canadian freedom.

Terrie had made it: She had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For 30 years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own. When she finally collapsed, she had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out.

يروي ناظم الزهاوي في مذكراته «الفتى القادم من بغداد» مسيرة حياته منذ سنواته الأولى في العراق حتى مسيرته السياسية البريطانية. ينقسم الكتاب إلى ثلاثة أبواب كبرى، يعكس كل منها مرحلة مهمة من حياته: طفولته في بغداد، وانتقاله للعيش في المملكة المتحدة، وصعوده إلى الشهرة السياسية وخروجه النهائي من عالم السياسة. يروي الزهاوي كيف شهدت عائلته الاستبداد المتزايد في العراق، وقمع المعارضة، وتحول البلاد إلى دولة يسكنها الخوف. لذلك قررت عائلته الفرار إلى المملكة المتحدة حين كان الزهاوي في الحادية عشرة من عمره، خوفاً من الاضطهاد. يصف المؤلف تحديات التآلف مع اللغة والثقافة والنظام التعليمي البريطاني. وفي سنوات مراهقته، ترسخت اهتماماته بدنيا الأعمال. وقد وفَّر له نجاحه في مجال الأعمال الثقة والمنصة المناسبة لدخول عالم السياسة. وكانت البداية انتخابه نائباً عن حزب المحافظين، ثم تسلمه بضع حقائب وزارية في ضمنها وزارة التعليم ووزارة الخزانة.

Larissa Salmina and Francis Haskell met by chance in a Venetian restaurant in September 1962. Prior to this fateful meal, Larissa escaped the siege of Leningrad and lived in the Urals, surrounded by Spanish revolutionaries. She became Keeper of Italian Drawings at the Hermitage and attended the 1962 Venice Biennale, where she stole (“I didn’t steal it. I liberated it”) a Matisse painting. Francis was a historian who never felt safe in England, his own country, and had abandoned hope of falling in love or finding anyone who could love him.

Some people think Jay-Z is just another rapper. Others see him as just another celebrity/mega-star. The reality is, no matter what you think Jay-Z is, he is first and foremost a business. And as much as Martha Stewart or Oprah, he has turned himself into a lifestyle. This audiobook explains just how Jay-Z propelled himself from the bleak streets of Brooklyn to the heights of the business world.

It'd been a long time since I claimed some solitude in this blessed landscape; since I've done without life's little props. Here I have no friend, no dog, no radio, no clock, no phone, no roof, no body pollutants.

Footprints in the Margin: The Life of a Forgotten Cultural Mediator recounts the quiet yet deeply influential life of an individual who served as a bridge between cultures—only to be overlooked by history. Born in one land and raised in the language of another, the protagonist carried within them a rare gift: the ability to understand—and translate—two seemingly distant worlds. The book delves into the life of a translator, letter writer, linguistic advisor, and cultural intermediary during critical historical moments—from international summits to postwar negotiations.

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.

From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.

First came parents with the good sense to flee Europe in 1940 and the good fortune to reach the land of freedom. Their daughter, Ruth, grew up in the shadow of genocide - but in tandem with the birth of Israel, which remained her lodestar. She learned that although Jewishness is biologically transmitted, democracy is not, and both require intensive, intelligent transmission through education in each and every generation.

“I have known Sylvia for twenty years, and I have the greatest respect for her. People seek her out for her much celebrated intuitive skills, however, I have sought her out for her friendship and kindness. I applaud her for the peace and solace that she has brought to so many.” — Montel...

For her whole life, Souad Mekhennet, a reporter for the Washington Post who was born and educated in Germany, has had to balance the two sides of her upbringing - Muslim and Western. She has also sought to provide a mediating voice between these cultures, which too often misunderstand each other.

Author and illustrator Martín Prechtel is internationally known for his explorations of ancient folklore and uncovering the lessons therein for modern readers. In The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, he revives a hitherto unknown Guatemalan Tzutujil Mayan tale of the beginnings of the...

Have you suffered a loss? How was your life changed by the grief you experienced? Did you feel like your grief was properly acknowledged? Mourning is a personal experience and shouldn't be judged. There are no do-overs in death, but there are do-betters. All My Dead Cats is not a book about pet...

Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what’s happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and Poet Laureate. Tracing his roots from...