Festival of Ideas: Margo Jefferson
Schedule
Fri May 27 2022 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm
Location
Waterstones Bristol | Bristol, EN
Advertisement
Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson interrogates her own self as well as the act of writing memoir, and probes the fissures of race and class at the centre of American cultural life.Margo Jefferson – ‘one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism’ (Cathy Park Hong) – follows her bestselling Negroland (which she spoke about in Bristol in 2016) with a new memoir. Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others – her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer.
Taking in the jazz and blues icons she idolised as a child (including Josephine Baker and Bud Powell), ideas of what the female body could be – as incarnated by trailblazing black dancers and athletes – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Topsy reimagined in the artworks of Kara Walker, white supremacy in the novels of Willa Cather, James Baldwin and more, Jefferson’s account is ‘a moving portrait of the life of a brilliant African American woman’s mind’ (Darryl Pinckney). Vivian Gornick said: ‘This is one of the most imaginative – and therefore moving – memoirs I have ever read. An impressive sequel to Negroland!’
Tickets £8/£6. Visit the Bristol Ideas website for booking details and accessibility information.
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
Waterstones Bristol, 11A Union Street,Bristol, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
