Books & Spoken Word
Claudia Rankine in conversation with David Olusoga
- Artists
- Claudia Rankine, David Olusoga
Writer Claudia Rankine is one of America’s most celebrated writers and one if its leading commentators on race, whiteness and Black Lives Matter. In her distinctive and multi-award-winning books Citizen (Penguin £9.99) and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely,(Penguin £9.99) Rankine weaves poetry, lyric essay, photography and visual art to examine the experience of race and racism in Western society. Through sharp vignettes of everyday discrimination and prejudice, and longer meditations on the violence – whether linguistic or physical – which has had an impact on the lives of Serena Williams, Zinedine Zidane, Mark Duggan and others, she explores an America ever more unable to process its own toxins, from medicated depression to racial tension, suspicion and fear. She takes an unflinching look at life and death in a nation in flux and provides a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our ostensibly ‘post-race’ society.
In this event Rankine will be in conversation with historian and broadcaster David Olusoga, talking about her work as a writer and academic. She will also be discussing the Racial Imaginary Institute which hosts an interdisciplinary range of artists, writers, knowledge-producers, and activists who engage, read, counter, contextualize and demystify the racial imaginaries of our time.
Price: £10/£8
is needed now More than ever
Photo credit John Lucas
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