Zinzi Clemmons "Freedom: Essays" (w/ Bekezela Mguni)

We are thrilled to welcome long-time friend of White Whale, Zinzi Clemmons, back to Pittsburgh to celebrate her debut collection of essays.
About this Event

We are thrilled to welcome long-time friend of White Whale, Zinzi Clemmons, back to Pittsburgh to celebrate her debut collection of essays: Freedom. Zinzi will be joined in coversation by local artist, cultural worker, and librarian, Bekezela Mguni.

“Incredibly perceptive. . . . A stunning testimony from a talented writer who strips off false facades with honesty and vulnerability, and leaves us with a searing question: ‘Can you build a nation based on love?’” —mónica teresa ortiz, BookPage (starred review)

ONE OF LIT HUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026

A radically vulnerable and virtuosic inquiry into the pursuit of freedom and the interminable nature of struggle, from the award-winning author of What We Lose Weaving personal reflections with piercing insight and expansive vision across nine brilliant essays, Zinzi Clemmons explores the complexities of the elusive concept of freedom. As the daughter of a South African mother and a Trinidadian America father, she recounts growing up in the largely white, affluent town of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania—and her frequent travels to Johannesburg, where the lofty promise of freedom was all around her. Coming of age amidst the euphoria of South Africa's first all-race elections, she grapples with the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the shattered hope in the wake of the Obama era. Clemmons critiques the entrenched inequalities that haunt both countries, from the tragic loss of a childhood friend to the violence that often befalls women who have the audacity to be free.

In a deft mix of memoir, family history, criticism, and reportage, drawing on a vast range of material from Joan Didion to James Baldwin, political analysis and history to Clemmons’s own experiences across the globe, Freedom is an incendiary exploration of race, sex, class, and inheritance. In elegiac prose, Clemmons trains her discerning eye on American institutions and mythologies, probing the bounds of liberation and autonomy to interrogate our most enduring quest—the relentless pursuit of freedom for all.

PRAISE FOR ZINZI CLEMMONS

“What is freedom? How can we fight for it, hold onto it, glory in it, amid so many kinds of injustice? The essays of Zinzi Clemmons ask and answer these questions with exacting force and clarity.” —Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland and Constructing a Nervous System

“Electrifying . . . A sharply glimmering vision of how personal experience connects to larger political moments.” —Publishers Weekly

“Freedom positions Zinzi Clemmons as one of the United States’ preeminent thinkers on justice. Her voice and vision fill me with gratitude.” —Myriam Gurba, author of Creep: Accusations and Confession

BEKEZELA MGUNI is a queer Trinidadian artist, cultural worker, and librarian. She serves as the Artistic Director of Dreams of Hope, which provides the region’s LGBTQIA+ youth with a welcoming environment to grow in confidence, express themselves, and develop as leaders through the arts. She is a steward of the PGH Flower Library and the founder of The Black Unicorn Library and Archive Project, a community initiative cultivating libraries as sites of possibility and freedom.

ZINZI CLEMMONS is the author of What We Lose. She was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. A cofounder of the literary journal Apogee, she lives in Northern California, where she serves as Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis.