Witness

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Oprah Daily, Elle, The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, Electric Literature, Library Journal, Commonweal Magazine

Winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award. A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Kirkus Prize

Long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Story Prize

A Must-Read: The New York Times, NPR, New York, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Today Show, The Boston Globe, Shondaland, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Review of Books, Essence, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Root

"Exhilarating . . . Brinkley is a writer whose versatility knows no boundaries . . . A gift of the highest quality." -Mateo Askaripour, The New York Times Book Review

From National Book Award finalist Jamel Brinkley, Witness is an elegant, insistent narrative of actions taken and not taken.

What does it mean to really see the world around you-to bear witness? And what does it cost us, both to see and not to see?

In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters-from children to grandmothers to ghosts-live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect with, stand up for, care for, and remember one another, they often fall short, and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape their futures as well as the legacies and prospects of their communities and their city.

In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief, and the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust-doctors, employers, siblings-too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.

With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully, seamlessly crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.

Autorentext

Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the John Leonard Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories. He was raised in the Bronx and Brooklyn and currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Klappentext

A Must-Read at The New York Times, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, The Boston Globe, Shondaland, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Review of Books, Essence, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Root

"Exhilarating . . . Brinkley is a writer whose versatility knows no boundaries . . . A gift of the highest quality." -Mateo Askaripour, The New York Times Book Review

From National Book Award finalist Jamel Brinkley, Witness is an elegant, insistent narrative of actions taken and not taken.

What does it mean to really see the world around you-to bear witness? And what does it cost us, both to see and not to see?

In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters-from children to grandmothers to ghosts-live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect with, stand up for, care for, and remember one another, they often fall short, and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape their futures as well as the legacies and prospects of their communities and their city.

In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief, and the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust-doctors, employers, siblings-too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.

With prose as upendingly beautiful as it is artfully, seamlessly crafted, Jamel Brinkley offers nothing less than the full scope of life and death and change in the great, unending drama of the city.

Zusammenfassung

"A tour de force . . . An extraordinary gathering of stories that confirms Brinkley's place among the most moving, compelling and virtuosic practitioners of the short form."
-Joe Moshenska, The Guardian

"Superb . . . A must-read."
-Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

"One of the finest young writers working today . . . Brinkley is a skilled, patient prose stylist and deft writer of character who isn't afraid to engage with the difficult moral complexity of contemporary life. Reading Witness will make you consider your place in the world as both a bystander and a participant."
-Isle McElroy, New York

"Packed with incident, insight and emotion . . . Supremely accomplished . . . [with] verve, poise and moments of unexpected beauty . . . Brinkley is shaping up to be one of the most impressive contemporary practitioners of short stories."
-Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

"Unassuming, funny, warm and generous with a sharp undertow of spiky intelligence . . . [Brinkley] constructs the cityscapes of his stories with such deliberate, exacting love and care."
-Lynn Steger Strong, Los Angeles Times

"Brinkley tackles several themes in the book, including community, responsibility and grief, and he does so beautifully, with assured prose and artful dialogue that rings true, sometimes painfully so. This is a brilliant collection that offers hope, but not at the expense of realism."
-Michael Schaub, NPR

"An instantly classic portrait of contemporary New York City, beamed through the lens of our modern, fractured existence."
-Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle

"These brilliant and heart-wrenching stories, bound by the act of bearing witness, capture moments of loss and grief."
-Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston Globe

"Burst[ing] with life . . . Thought-provoking, entertaining, explosive. Brinkley is an incredible talent."
-Harlan Coben, Today Show

"[A] powerful collection."
-The New Yorker

"Racism, police brutality, failing social support systems, violence in social media, economic hardship-Brinkley bears witness to these topics . . . with searing beauty and grace."
-Monika Dziamka, Chicago Review of Books

"Short stories that in their depth of feeling, perception, and sense of place affirm their author's bright promise . . . [They] carry a rich veneer worthy of such exemplars of the form as Chekhov, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro, and James Alan McPherson . . . After just two collections, Brinkley may already be a grand master of the short story."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In his dazzling sophomore collection, Brinkley digs into the promises and dangers of intimacy and the costs of speaking up or staying silent . . . Throughout, Brinkley crafts unforgettable portraits, humming with barely restrained tension, of Black men and women exploring what it means to be part of families and com…