A review by lifeinpoetry
Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell

5.0

I went into this thinking it'd be more like Restless Books' The Face series and was pleasantly surprised to find this lighter on autobiography, delving more into theory and criticism. Very easy to follow along even if you're not acquainted with each essay's main topic. I'd never heard of The Bondswoman but think it's necessary to add to my TBR and only had a nodding acquaintance with The Elephant Man and Grizzly Man but still found the essays on these fascinating. The essay on emojis/emoticons/gifs/(digital) symbols was easily my favorite, with the one on The Bondswoman being the runnerup. The idea of sampling the work of other authors and "blackening" them in The Bondswoman reminded me of BIPOC &/or queer poets taking texts, often anti-* ones, to make hybrid works that subvert the meaning of the originals.