In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The Millions

Lively, insightful writings on Black music, feminism, literature, and events from a “masterful critic and master teacher” (Walton Muyumba, Boston Globe).

In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin’s rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and the Black artists she esteems. She moves from evoking the haunting strength of Odetta and the rise of soprano popular singers in the 1970s to the forging of a Black women’s literary renaissance and the politics of Malcolm X through the lens of Black feminism. She reflects on pivotal moments in recent American history―including the banning of Toni Morrison’s Beloved―and celebrates the intellectuals, artists, and personal relationships that have shaped her identity and her work.

Featuring new and unpublished essays along with ones first appearing in outlets such as the New York Times and NPR, In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is a captivating collection that celebrates the work of “one of the few great intellectuals in our time” (Cornel West).

Farah Jasmine Griffin (Ph.D. Yale), is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of Who Set You Flowin’?: The African American Migration Narrative; If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday; Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II; and Read Until You Understand: New and Selected Essays, among other works.