TEJU COLE is my favorite contemporary writer. What's yours Veeky Forums?

> He is a writer, art historian, and photographer.

> He is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College and photography critic of the New York Times Magazine.

More here: tejucole.com/

...

Get some taste you poor bastards.

Glasses that make your eyes seem smaller are always pig-disgusting

I respect this guy too.

Let me guess, he writes about how tough black people have it?

White American progressives are responsible for more terrible literature than any single group in the entire history of the English language. I don't blame Cole and Coates for writing awful books that pander to double-digit IQ morons, I blame their popularity on the said morons who support and promote them.

How does Colson Whitehead compare to the black authors mentioned ITT

Blame it on them. They started it.

Are Teju Cole, Colson Whitehad and Marlon James pretty much the canon of contemporary black fiction?

Maybe Edward P. Jones can be added to this list, though he's older than them. Mainly thinking of younger authors btw, so Toni Morrison is out.

>How does [hot dogshit] compare to [wet dogshit]
Why would anybody care is a better question

Also what about poetry? I can think of Kevin Young, Tracy K. Smith and Terrance Hayes. Rap isn't poetry btw.

I want /pol/ to stop pretending they read Open City.

>Rap isn't poetry btw.
Pretentious white guy detected. Don't you have literally five hundred other threads you can discuss your opinions in?

there is good, poetic rap, but it's a completely different medium.

Funny how saying what's basically a truism always causes instant butthurt.

lol look at his nose

laughed more than i should have

If there are hip hop artists who can write at least as well as these poets then I'll listen

I haven't read it because I know I won't enjoy it. All the warning signs are there--widespread acclaim from the usual incestuous herd of middlebrow American literary critics (The Atlantic, NY Mag, NPR), a nonwhite author who owes his entire success to Western culture and yet resents it, an author stand-in as the main character (who can think of nothing other than himself and his race), and an uncreative narrative that is nothing but a vehicle for whatever thought entered the author's head while he wrote the book.

It looks like intersectional pandering for Western progressives, and I would bet my left nut that's exactly it is. It's not going to be an interesting book to anybody who doesn't want to have their pre-established political opinions shoved right back down their throat one more time, this time with the veneer of blasé black condescension.

MC Ride ;)

I haven't read him but Open City sounds like it's just a ripoff of Sebald's The Rings of Saturn

Compare

The Rings of Saturn
>Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the author in typical Sebaldian fashion[1]) on a walking tour of Suffolk. In addition to describing the places he sees and people he encounters, including translator Michael Hamburger, Sebald discusses various episodes of history and literature, including the introduction of silkworm cultivation to Europe and the writings of Thomas Browne, which attach in some way to the larger text.

Open City
>the novel focuses on "Nigerian immigrant Julius, a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City, has recently broken up with his girlfriend and spends most of his time dreamily walking around Manhattan. The majority of Open City centers on Julius’ inner thoughts as he rambles throughout the city, painting scenes of both what occurs around him and past events that he can’t help but dwell on.

That's like a good 50% of modern literary fiction. Can be done well but can be pure wank

Those two in particular just seem too similar not to compare, unless there are some more examples of the "person ruminates while wandering a city" genre that you know of