Virtual Event: Writing our Ancestors with Boston Review

featuring Tyehimba Jess, Cheswayo Mphanza, Domenica Ruta, Sonia Sanchez, Yeoh Jo-Ann, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ed Pavlić, and Ivelisse Rodriguez

It is rare now for people to stay where they were raised, and when we encounter one another—whether in person or online—it is usually in contexts that obscure, if not outright hide, details about our past. But even in moments of pure self-invention, we are always shaped by the past.

In Ancestors, some of today’s most imaginative writers—including science fiction master Samuel R. Delany, U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and novelist Zadie Smith—consider what it means to be made and fashioned by others.