Heads of the Colored People

Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with race, identity politics, and the contemporary middle class in this "vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive" (George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo) collection.

Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous--two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids' backpacks--while others are devastatingly poignant. In the title story, when a cosplayer, dressed as his favorite anime character, is mistaken for a violent threat the consequences are dire; in another story, a teen struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with so-called black culture.

Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires "has taken the best of what Toni Cade Bambara, Morgan Parker, and Junot Díaz do plus a whole lot of something we've never seen in American literature, blended it all together...giving us one of the finest short-story collections" (Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division).

Nafissa Thompson-Spires earned a doctorate in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois. Her work has appeared in Story Quarterly, Lunch Ticket, and The Feminist Wire, among other publications. She was a 2016 fellow of the Callaloo Writer's Workshop.

• Publisher: 37 INK; Reprint edition (January 22, 2019)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 224 pages
• ISBN-10: 1501168002
• ISBN-13: 9781501168000
• Item Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.3 x 8.38 inches