PRIM BOOKSHOP
READS YOU CAN RELATE TO.
Octavia’s Brood Edited by Adrienne Maree Brown + Walidah Imarisha
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing visionary fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time.
This book brings twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia's Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to experiment with new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves
and worlds that could be.
The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a foreword by Sheree Renée Thomas.
Publisher: AK Press
Format: 296 pages, Paperback
Language: English
Released: March 13, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781849352109
This is the selected read for PRIM’s February OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing visionary fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time.
This book brings twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia's Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to experiment with new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves
and worlds that could be.
The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a foreword by Sheree Renée Thomas.
Publisher: AK Press
Format: 296 pages, Paperback
Language: English
Released: March 13, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781849352109
This is the selected read for PRIM’s February OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis-Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas.
At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves must confront long-hidden scars.
From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.
Publisher: Liveright
Format: 352 pages, Paperback
Language: English
Released: July 5, 2016
ISBN-13: 9781631491764
This is the selected read for PRIM’s March OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis-Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas.
At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves must confront long-hidden scars.
From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.
Publisher: Liveright
Format: 352 pages, Paperback
Language: English
Released: July 5, 2016
ISBN-13: 9781631491764
This is the selected read for PRIM’s March OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
Revolutionary Acts : Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain by Jason Okundaye
In this landmark work, Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and finds a spirited community full of courage, charisma and good humour, hungry to tell its past – of nightlife, resistance, political fights, loss, gossip, sex, romance and vulgarity. Through their conversations he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain, narratives frequently cleaved as distinct and unrelated.
Tracing these men’s journeys and arrivals to South London through the seventies, eighties and nineties from the present day, Okundaye relays their stories with rare compassion, listening as they share intimate memories and reflect upon their lives. They endured and fought against the peak of the AIDS epidemic, built social groups and threw underground parties; they went to war with institutions (and with each other) and created meaning within a society which was often indifferent to their existence.
Revolutionary Acts renders a singular portrait of Britain from the perspective of those buffeted by the winds of marginalisation and discrimination. It is a portrait marked by resilience and self-determination, inspired by the love and beauty Black men have found in each other.
Publisher: Faber&Faber
Format: 304 pages, Hardback
Language: English
Released: March 7, 2024
ISBN-13: 9780571372218
This is the selected read for PRIM’s April OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
In this landmark work, Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and finds a spirited community full of courage, charisma and good humour, hungry to tell its past – of nightlife, resistance, political fights, loss, gossip, sex, romance and vulgarity. Through their conversations he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain, narratives frequently cleaved as distinct and unrelated.
Tracing these men’s journeys and arrivals to South London through the seventies, eighties and nineties from the present day, Okundaye relays their stories with rare compassion, listening as they share intimate memories and reflect upon their lives. They endured and fought against the peak of the AIDS epidemic, built social groups and threw underground parties; they went to war with institutions (and with each other) and created meaning within a society which was often indifferent to their existence.
Revolutionary Acts renders a singular portrait of Britain from the perspective of those buffeted by the winds of marginalisation and discrimination. It is a portrait marked by resilience and self-determination, inspired by the love and beauty Black men have found in each other.
Publisher: Faber&Faber
Format: 304 pages, Hardback
Language: English
Released: March 7, 2024
ISBN-13: 9780571372218
This is the selected read for PRIM’s April OKHA Book Club. Click here to sign up.
The Black Joy Project by Kleaver Cruz
Featuring 117 full-color photos and eight breathtaking essays on a force that fuels Black life all around the globe, this is Humans of New York meets The Black Book
"A patchwork quilt of visually stunning images, captured moments of triumph, antidotes to trauma narratives and rich, ebullient emotional and verbal spice for the soul." – Michael W. Twitty, culinary and cultural historian, and author of The Cooking Gene and Koshersoul
"In literature, there are some books that transcend mere pages and ink, becoming essential pieces of cultural expression. One such book poised to make its mark is The Black Joy Project…. This ambitious work breaks new ground." – Essence
Black Joy is everywhere. From the bustling streets of Lagos to hip-hop blasting through apartment windows in the Bronx. From the wide-open coastal desert of Namibia to the lush slopes of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. From the thriving tradition of Candomblé in Bahia to the innovative and trendsetting styles of Soweto, and beyond, Black Joy is present in every place that Black people exist. Now—at last—is a one-of-a-kind celebration of this truth and a life-giving testament to one of the most essential forces that fuels Black life: The Black Joy Project.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Format: 224 pages, Hardback
Language: English
Released: February 29, 2024
ISBN-13: 9780358588757
Featuring 117 full-color photos and eight breathtaking essays on a force that fuels Black life all around the globe, this is Humans of New York meets The Black Book
"A patchwork quilt of visually stunning images, captured moments of triumph, antidotes to trauma narratives and rich, ebullient emotional and verbal spice for the soul." – Michael W. Twitty, culinary and cultural historian, and author of The Cooking Gene and Koshersoul
"In literature, there are some books that transcend mere pages and ink, becoming essential pieces of cultural expression. One such book poised to make its mark is The Black Joy Project…. This ambitious work breaks new ground." – Essence
Black Joy is everywhere. From the bustling streets of Lagos to hip-hop blasting through apartment windows in the Bronx. From the wide-open coastal desert of Namibia to the lush slopes of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. From the thriving tradition of Candomblé in Bahia to the innovative and trendsetting styles of Soweto, and beyond, Black Joy is present in every place that Black people exist. Now—at last—is a one-of-a-kind celebration of this truth and a life-giving testament to one of the most essential forces that fuels Black life: The Black Joy Project.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Format: 224 pages, Hardback
Language: English
Released: February 29, 2024
ISBN-13: 9780358588757
The Journey of Things by Magdalene Odundo
The Journey of Things by Magdalene Odundo was published alongside the exhibition of the same name presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in Spring 2019.
The book features 44 of Odundo’s vessels alongside a large selection of museological and contemporary objects that reveal the wide range of global references that have informed her practice. It also comprises a series of interleaved sections presenting an organic flow of content which pairs and juxtaposes the historic and the contemporary, featuring works by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Lucie Rie, Jean Arp, as well as ancient vessels from Greece and Egypt, historic ceramics from Africa, Asia and Central America, and ritual objects from across the African continent.
Publisher: InOtherWords
Format: 184 pages
Language: English
Released: May 15, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781916002418
The Journey of Things by Magdalene Odundo was published alongside the exhibition of the same name presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in Spring 2019.
The book features 44 of Odundo’s vessels alongside a large selection of museological and contemporary objects that reveal the wide range of global references that have informed her practice. It also comprises a series of interleaved sections presenting an organic flow of content which pairs and juxtaposes the historic and the contemporary, featuring works by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Lucie Rie, Jean Arp, as well as ancient vessels from Greece and Egypt, historic ceramics from Africa, Asia and Central America, and ritual objects from across the African continent.
Publisher: InOtherWords
Format: 184 pages
Language: English
Released: May 15, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781916002418
There’s A Disco Ball Between Us by Jafari S. Allen
In There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, Jafari S. Allen offers a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls “Black gay habits of mind.”
In conversational and lyrical language, Allen locates this sensibility as it emerged from radical Black lesbian activism and writing during the long 1980s. He traverses multiple temporalities and locations, drawing on research and fieldwork conducted across the globe, from Nairobi, London, and Paris to Toronto, Miami, and Trinidad and Tobago. In these locations and archives, Allen traces the genealogies of Black gay politics and cultures in the visual art, poetry, film, Black feminist theory, historiography, and activism of thinkers and artists such as Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, Essex Hemphill, Colin Robinson, Marlon Riggs, Pat Parker, and Joseph Beam.
Throughout, Allen renarrates Black queer history while cultivating a Black gay method of thinking and writing. In so doing, he speaks to the urgent contemporary struggles for social justice while calling on Black studies to pursue scholarship, art, and policy derived from the lived experience and fantasies of Black people throughout the world.
Publisher: Duke University Press
Format: 424 pages
Language: English
Released: November 15, 2021
ISBN-13: 9781478014591
In There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, Jafari S. Allen offers a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls “Black gay habits of mind.”
In conversational and lyrical language, Allen locates this sensibility as it emerged from radical Black lesbian activism and writing during the long 1980s. He traverses multiple temporalities and locations, drawing on research and fieldwork conducted across the globe, from Nairobi, London, and Paris to Toronto, Miami, and Trinidad and Tobago. In these locations and archives, Allen traces the genealogies of Black gay politics and cultures in the visual art, poetry, film, Black feminist theory, historiography, and activism of thinkers and artists such as Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, Essex Hemphill, Colin Robinson, Marlon Riggs, Pat Parker, and Joseph Beam.
Throughout, Allen renarrates Black queer history while cultivating a Black gay method of thinking and writing. In so doing, he speaks to the urgent contemporary struggles for social justice while calling on Black studies to pursue scholarship, art, and policy derived from the lived experience and fantasies of Black people throughout the world.
Publisher: Duke University Press
Format: 424 pages
Language: English
Released: November 15, 2021
ISBN-13: 9781478014591
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