For Ishmael Reed, Barack Obama, like Michelangelo's St. Anthony, is a tormented man, haunted by modern reincarnations of the demonic spirits used to break slaves. These were the "Nigger Breakers"-men like Edward Covey, who was handed the job of breaking Frederick Douglass. "Isn't it ironic, " writes Reed: "A media that scolded the Jim Crow South in the 1960s now finds itself hosting the bird." In this collection, which includes several unpublished essays, Ishmael Reed brings to bear his grasp of the four-centuries-long African-American experience as he turns his penetrating gaze on Barack Obama's election and first year in power-establishing himself as the conscience of a country that was once moved by Martin Luther King's dream.

Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media - The Return of the Nigger Breakers

PaPa LaBas n'est pas un personnage comme les autres : il incarne l'âme de la danse et de la musique noire américaine, née au début du vingtième siècle à La Nouvelle-Orléans et changeant de nom selon les époques – ragtime, blues, jazz, boogie, soul, funk, hip-hop. À la fois sorcier et détective, militant et grand initié, agitateur et héritier des traditions magiques de l'Afrique animiste, PaPa LaBas est en lutte : contre les suprémacistes blancs de l'Ordre de la Fleur de muraille et contre les grands maîtres de la Voie atoniste, qui s'accordent à considérer la musique noire comme une menace pour la civilisation. Entre réel et surréel, Mumbo Jumbo est un roman vibrant d'énergie où la rage de vivre et l'amour de la musique éclatent à chaque page, un polar délirant. Né en 1938, Ishmael Reed est un poète, romancier et essayiste américain. Il a contribué au Black Arts Movement dans les années 60 et a été une figure marquante de la culture noire américaine de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Nominé pour le prix Pulitzer ; il a été deux fois finaliste du National Book Award. Edition augmentée d'une postface inédite de l'auteur. Traduit de l'anglais (Etats-Unis) par Gérard H. Durand.

Mumbo Jumbo - Occasion

Brillante ed eccentrico, Mumbo Jumbo è un'elegia e una rivendicazione della cultura africana in tutte le sue manifestazioni e latitudini, dalla mitologia egizia al VooDoo, al blues e al dixieland. È una fiera rivendicazione del ruolo africano nella storia della cultura occidentale, dall'antichità a oggi. È anche un trattato di controstoria degli Stati Uniti, un hard-boiled mistico che si svolge ad Harlem negli anni Venti - l'epoca della Black Renaissance - e ha come protagonista un detective animista, Papa LaBas, aiutato nell'indagine da Black Herman, mago e illusionista, alle prese con un'epidemia di Jes Grew, virus diffuso tramite il jazz che spinge i bianchi a ballare fino allo sfinimento. Sullo sfondo, la guerra sporca degli Stati Uniti contro Haiti. L'intera civiltà moderna viene analizzata attraverso un capovolgimento di prospettiva, in cui la storia incrocia l'allucinarsi della verità. Mumbo Jumbo, che torna ai lettori dopo una lunghissima assenza, è un giallo VooDoo, un libro di black fantasy, una satira: un'opera di puro genio che diverte, sorprende e stupisce, e probabilmente uno dei più clamorosi libri di culto di sempre. Con una nota di Elémire Zolla

Mumbo Jumbo

A major literary event-the eagerly anticipated publication of a long-lost novel from legendary writer and three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee John Oliver Killens, hailed as the founding father of the Black Arts Movement and mentor to celebrated writers, including Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Arthur Flowers, and Terry McMillan. Wanderlust has taken Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson on numerous adventures, from Mississippi to Washington D. C., Vietnam, London and eventually to Africa, to the fictitious Independent People's Democratic Republic of Guanaya, where the young musician hopes to "find himself."But this small sliver of a country in West Africa, recently freed from British colonial rule, is thrown into turmoil with the discovery of cobanium-a radioactive mineral 500 times more powerful than uranium, making it irresistible for greedy speculators, grifters, and charlatans. Overnight, outsiders descend upon the sleepy capital city looking for "a piece of the action."When a plot to assassinate Guanaya's leader is discovered, Jimmy Jay-a dead ringer for the Prime Minister-is enlisted in a counter scheme to foil the would-be coup. He will travel to America with half of Guanaya's cabinet ministers to meet with the President of the United States and address the UN General Assembly, while the rest of the cabinet will remain in Guanaya with the real Prime Minister. What could go wrong? Everything. Set in the 1980s, this smart, funny, dazzlingly brilliant novel is a literary delight-and the final gift from an American literary legend.

The Minister Primarily - A Novel

The Classic Freewheeling Look at Race Relations Through the Ages Mumbo Jumbo is Ishmael Reed's brilliantly satiric deconstruction of Western civilization, a racy and uproarious commentary on our society. In it, Reed, one of our preeminent African-American authors, mixes portraits of historical figures and fictional characters with sound bites on subjects ranging from ragtime to Greek philosophy. Cited by literary critic Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred most significant books in the Western canon, Mumbo Jumbo is a trenchant and often biting look at black-white relations throughout history, from a keen observer of our culture.

Harlem, années 1920. PaPa LaBas, détective et sorcier «?néo-houdouiste?», est engagé dans une lutte contre l'Ordre de la Fleur de muraille. Les membres de ce mouvement suprémaciste veulent éradiquer un mal mystérieux nommé Djeuze Grou - une sorte de virus qui se propagerait par la danse et la musique noires, menaçant selon eux de renverser l'Amérique blanche. Pour contrer leurs sinistres desseins, PaPa LaBas se met en quête du mythique Livre sacré de Djeuze Grou, dont on dit qu'il serait détenu par le séculaire ordre des Templiers.

Entre parodie de polar et de quête initiatique, allégorie politique, grand carnaval entremêlant les références historiques, mythologiques, littéraires, folkloriques et musicales, Mumbo Jumbo dresse le portrait prophétique d'une Amérique livrée aux démons du racisme et du conspirationnisme. Un roman culte qui a inspiré toute une génération d'artistes, de Thomas Pynchon à Colson Whitehead en passant par George Clinton.

Ishmael Scott Reed, né le 22 février 1938 à Chattanooga, dans le Tennessee, est un essayiste, poète et auteur de romans satiriques afro-américain.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Reed

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