Black paper : writing in a dark time
Publication Information
Chicago [Illinois] ; London [England] : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
Physical Description
xi, 264 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 23 cm.
Summary
"In 'Black paper,' Teju Cole meditates on what it means to keep our humanity--and witness the humanity of others--in a time of darkness. 'Darkness,' Cole writes, 'is not empty.' Through art, politics, travel, and memoir, he returns us to the wisdom latent in shadows, and sets the darkness echoing. The opening essay sets the mood for the book, as Cole travels to southern Italy and Sicily to view a series of Caravaggio paintings. He ponders the suffering that Caravaggio ('a murderer, a slaveholder, a terror, and a pest') both dealt out and experienced, and the disquieting echoes of that suffering in the abandoned boats of migrants arriving on nearby shores. This collection also gathers several of Cole's recent columns on photography for the 'New York times magazine' and offers a suite of elegies to lost friends who show him--and us--ways of mourning in times of death."--
Notes
Includes index.
Contents
- Preface
- After Caravaggio
- Elegies. Room 406 ; Mama's shroud ; Four elegies ; Two elegies ; A letter to John Berger ; A quartet for Edward Said
- Shadows. Gossamer world : on Santu Mofokeng ; An incantation for Marie Cosindas ; Pictures in the aftermath ; Shattered glass ; What does it mean to look at this? ; A crime scene at the border ; Shadow cabinet : on Kerry James Marshall ; Nighted color : on Lorna Simpson ; The blackness of the panther ; Restoring the darkness
- Coming to our senses. Experience ; Epiphany ; Ethics
- In a dark time. A time for refusal ; Resist, refuse ; Through the door ; Passages north ; On carrying and being carried
- Epilogue: Black paper.