{"product_id":"the-strangers-five-extraordinary-black-men-and-the-worlds-that-made-them-9780063450523","title":"The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Moving, thoughtful, redemptive. \u003cem\u003eThe Strangers\u003c\/em\u003e is an important book. It will become a Black classic.\"-- Ben Okri, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Famished Road\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Thrilling and ingenious, propulsive and genre-defying: \u003cem\u003eThe Strangers\u003c\/em\u003e is an outstanding book. Compelling and imaginatively expansive, this is something very special\u003c\/strong\u003e--\u003cstrong\u003ecreative nonfiction that inspires, stirs and challenges.\"--Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of \u003cem\u003eGirl, Woman, Other\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA richly imaginative, powerfully empathetic, and intimate portrait of five remarkable Black men that is also a moving meditation on race, estrangement, and the search for home.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger, outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien; one who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in his own right, but the representative of a type.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? What happens beneath the mask--what is the cost to the mind and body, to one's relationships and one's sense of self?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSearching for answers, Ekow Eshun channels the voices of five very different individuals. Each man a renowned trailblazer in his field. Each man haunted by a sense of isolation and exile. Each man a stranger in his own world: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003eIra Aldridge, nineteenth century British actor and playwright;Matthew Henson, the first Black man to reach the North Pole;Frantz Fanon, French-Martinican psychiatrist and political philosopher;Malcolm X, civil rights activist and leader;Justin Fashanu, Britain's first openly gay professional footballer.\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eTelling their stories, Eshun pushes the boundaries of genre to capture them in all their complexity, interweaving biography, fiction, historical record, and memoir, sharing his own experiences living as a Black Briton in the art world. \u003cem\u003eThe Strangers \u003c\/em\u003eilluminates both the hostility and the beauty each man encountered in the world, positioning them all within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history, and politics throughout the diaspora.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Harper\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/13\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780063450523\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 400","brand":"Ekow Eshun","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45187192225973,"sku":"9780063450523","price":29.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_a8a6f9da-4d0f-4755-8295-7db36c4ce4f8.jpg?v=1742271396","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-strangers-five-extraordinary-black-men-and-the-worlds-that-made-them-9780063450523","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}