When a dear friend recommended The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, I thought the book was a tribute to the famous Black historian, sociologist, scholar, and civil rights activist. Although excerpts of his writings open chapters, the book is sweeping historical fiction – perhaps the best I've ever read.
The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, the first novel by award-winning poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, traces an American Black family back eight generations, through the eyes of Ailey Pearl Garfield, who untangles her own origins while doing research for a doctorate in American history. I expected something similar to Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family from 1976, but the added dimension of a contemporary Black female perspective transcends even that classic.
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