Black Paper

Wide-ranging but thematically unified, the essays address ethical questions about what it means to be human and what it means to bear witness, recognizing how our individual present is informed by a collective past. Cole’s writings in Black Paper approach the fractured moment of our history through a constellation of interrelated concerns: confrontation with unsettling art, elegies both public and private, the defense of writing in a time of political upheaval, the role of the color black in the visual arts, the use of shadow in photography, and the links between literature and activism. 

Teju Cole is a novelist, photographer, critic, curator, and the author of seven books, which include Open City, Blind Spot, and Golden Apple of the Sun. He was the photography critic of the New York Times Magazine from 2015 until 2019. A 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, he is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard.

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press; First edition (October 27, 2021)
• Language: English
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• ISBN-10: 022664135X
• ISBN-13: 9780226641355
• Item Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches