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Black Folk Could Fly: Selected Writings by Randall Kenan
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About This Book
A personal, social, and intellectual self-portrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan, a master of both fiction and nonfiction. Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan's life and work. Flying under the radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical: memories of the three women who raised him—a grandmother, a schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt's best friend; recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and crops—the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing—of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him. Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt, Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a great writer from whom readers will always wish to have more to read.
Reviews
"This sublime posthumous collection of essays from novelist Kenan, who died in 2020, offers a moving take on the things that inspired his work, largely Southern culture...The pieces add up to a rich and rewarding testament to Kenan's curiosity and candor...Fans and new readers alike will appreciate this opportunity to take in Kenan's remarkable talent."
"Kenan, as this book demonstrates, never aspired to be the next Baldwin in any literal sense, and much as he admired him, he had a complicated relationship, as a standout Black, gay, male writer, to the inevitable comparisons...More inclined toward the ancestral, the numinous and the folkloric, Kenan poses a question to his godson: 'Did you know, once upon a time, Black folk could fly?' Referencing the legend of Africans who escape enslavement by flying home, Kenan's letter dreams a path forward using resources that lie deep in the past...This applies to the whole of 'Black Folk Could Fly,' a collection of essays that, while less known than his celebrated fiction — many appeared as introductions or in small magazines — provide rare insight into Kenan's life and mind, while retaining the humor, humanity and elegant power for which he is loved...In a sense, the collected pieces function as memoir, or as a series of love letters to the forces that shaped the writer."
"Stirring, deeply thought-through essays and letters on topics ranging from sexuality and racism to foodways and the sense of place...A superb introduction to a writer deserving much greater recognition."
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