Nonetheless, he writes, “the stories that I favor are not only upsetting, but uplifting.” Walker’s rich compilation adds up to a rewardingly insightful self-portrait that reveals how one man relates to various aspects of his identity. Race threads its way through many of the essays, which reveal the subtle indignities often suffered by Black people in public settings. Life in academia is yet another-the struggles of graduate school, job seeking, and attaining tenure, and, at times, of being the only Black person in a white milieu.

His life as a writer is another, with a particular emphasis on paying tribute to his late writing teacher, short story writer James Alan McPherson. Parenting and disability is one: he is the child of blind parents, and the parent of a son with a neurological disorder that causes seizures. How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, his third book, was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction.

Winship/PEN New England Award for Nonfiction. His first book, Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Redemption, was awarded the L.L. Beginning with Frederick Douglass’s famous declaration, “You have seen how a man was made a slave you shall see how a slave was made a man,” Walker tackles a number of themes through his 22 selections. He has written book reviews for The New York Times and The Washington Post. Walker refuses to lull his readers instead his missives urge them to do better as they consider, through his eyes, how to be a good citizen, how to be a good father, how to live, and how to love.Walker ( Once More to the Ghetto), an Emerson College creative writing professor, delivers a stylish and thought-provoking collection of reflections on his personal and professional life. The result is a bracing and often humorous examination by one of America’s most acclaimed essayists of what it is to grow, parent, write, and exist as a black American male. “The essays in this collection are restless, brilliant and short.…The brevity suits not just Walker’s style but his worldview, too.…Keeping things quick gives him the freedom to move he can alight on a truth without pinning it into place.” -Jennifer Szalai, the New York Timesįor the black community, Jerald Walker asserts in How to Make a Slave, “anger is often a prelude to a joke, as there is broad understanding that the triumph over this destructive emotion lay in finding its punchline.” It is on the knife’s edge between fury and farce that the essays in this exquisite collection balance. Whether confronting the medical profession’s racial biases, considering the complicated legacy of Michael Jackson, paying homage to his writing mentor James Alan McPherson, or attempting to break free of personal and societal stereotypes, Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique. Finalist, National Book Award in NonfictionĪ Book of the Year pick from Kirkus, BuzzFeed, and Literary Hub

How to make a slave by jerald walker