Posts Tagged ‘Emily Bernard’

‘Black Is the Body’ by Emily Bernard

January 14th, 2019

WHO: Emily Bernard

WHAT: BLACK IS THE BODY:
Stories from My Grandmother’s Time,
My Mother’s Time, and Mine

WHEN: Published by Knopf February 1, 2019

WHERE: The author lives in Vermont.

WHY: “A rare book of healing.
“A memoir in essays about race that is as lucid as the issue is complicated. Though Bernard is a scholar, her latest book is almost devoid of jargon. Instead, the writing is deeply felt, unflinchingly honest, and openly questioning. The author makes no claims to have all the answers about what it means to be a black woman from the South who has long lived and worked in the very white state of Vermont, where she might be the first black person that some of her students have encountered.
“From the evidence on display here, Bernard is a top-notch teacher who explores territory that many of her students might prefer to leave unexplored. She is married to a white professor of African-American Studies, and she ponders how his relationship with the students might be different than hers, how he is comfortable letting them call him by his first name while she ponders whether to adopt a more formal address. The couple also adopted twin daughters from Ethiopia, which gives all of them different perspectives on the African-American hyphenate.
“But it also illuminates a legacy of storytelling, from her mother and the Nashville where the author was raised and her grandparents’ Mississippi. ‘I could not leave the South behind. I still can’t,’ she writes, and then elaborates on the relationship between blacks and whites there: ‘We were ensnared in the same historical drama. I was forged—mind and body—in the unending conversation between southern blacks and whites. I don’t hate the South. To despise it would be to despise myself.’
“The book’s genesis and opening is her life-threatening stabbing by a deranged white stranger, a seemingly random crime. Toward the end of the book, she realizes that ‘in every scar there is a story. The salve is the telling itself.’ A rare book of healing on multiple levels.” —KIRKUS, a starred review

“Bernard’s honesty and vulnerability reveal a strong voice with no sugarcoating…
By telling these stories, she hopes to contribute to the conversation of race in America, a narrative that defies conventions and popular assumptions.”
—Stephanie Hollmichael, in a starred review for LIBRARY JOURNAL

Jacket photo

Media Resources:
About the book and author | Read an excerpt | Author tour | Download the jacket | Download the author photo

Knopf. 240 pages. $25.95
ISBN 978-0-451-49302-6


To interview the author, contact:
Jess Purcell | 212-572-2082 | jpurcell@penguinrandomhouse.com