NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD 2021

Included in the “Best Books of the 21st Century” – Kirkus Reviews

The exceptional portrait of an American family and, at the same time, a rare powerful and truthful portrait of America. From her early childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield understood very well what the great thinker W.E.B. Du Bois meant when he once wrote about the issue of the Black race in America and about the “double consciousness” that forces every African American to see themselves through the eyes of others in order to survive.

Ailey carries the names of two people – on one hand the renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey and on the other her great-grandmother Pearl, who was a descendant of slaves – and carries the heavy burden of “double consciousness” on her shoulders. Raised in a large urban center in the North, she spends her summers in Chicasetta, a small town in Georgia, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa under slavery.

Throughout her life, she struggles to belong somewhere, while the whispers of women through centuries urge her to achieve what they could not. Thus begins a journey into her family’s past, revealing the staggering stories of previous generations, indigenous, Black and white, deep in the South. She is called to accept her entire ancestral past, a legacy of oppression and resistance, slavery and independence, harshness and resilience that constitutes the history – and the song – of America itself.

“A story that transcends the boundaries of Black literature, breaking the crust of feminist reading and speaking about the human condition, the cry of the oppressed, their voice and breath.” - Myrto Kalofolia

Included in the “Best Books of 2021” – New York Times Book Review • Time • Washington Post • Oprah Daily • People • Boston Globe • BookPage • Booklist • Kirkus • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Chicago Public Library

“Triumph! The best book we have read in a very, very long time. A unique epic, whose heroes you will never forget.” – New York Times

“If this is not the Great American Novel, it is a powerful attempt at achieving it.” – Kirkus Reviews

“A stunning and ambitious saga. It addresses topics such as family, social class, higher education, feminism, and race on many levels.” – Publishers Weekly

“W.E.B. Du Bois’s Love Songs is one of those books that comes out only once a decade… It invites you on a thrilling journey that will transform the way you understand America.” – Washington Post

“A vivid and tender coming-of-age novel. A young girl reflecting on what it means to be a Black woman in America.” – Time