Hanif Abdurraqib has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is A Fortune for Your Disaster.
A Fortune for Your Disaster
Summary
In his much-anticipated follow-up to The Crown Ain't Worth Much, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew. It's a book about a mother's death, and admitting that Michael Jordan pushed off, about forgiveness, and how none of the author's black friends wanted to listen to "Don't Stop Believin'". It's about wrestling with histories, personal and shared. Abdurraqib uses touchstones from the world outside - from Marvin Gaye to Nikola Tesla to his neighbor's dogs - to create a mirror, inside of which every angle presents a new possibility.
©2019 Hanif Abdurraqib (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
A Little Devil in America
Summary
A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times best-selling author of Go Ahead in the Rain “Whether heralding unsung entertainers or reexamining legends, Hanif Abdurraqib weaves together gorgeous essays that reveal the resilience, heartbreak, and joy within Black performance. I read this book breathlessly.” (Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half) At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was 57 years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines - whether it’s the 27 seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder”. a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt - has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance. Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space - from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
©2020 Hanif Abdurraqib (P)2020 Random House Audio