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A Black Immigrant's Search for Home Across Four Continents
by Jennifer Neal
With heart, humor, and razor-sharp observation, this intimate and incisive memoir traces the journey of a Black, queer woman as she searches the world for a place of security and acceptance to call home.
I've never seen home as a permanent concept; it is an image crafted from untempered glass that threatens to shatter with lack of care.
Jennifer Neal was born in the United States to a family that moved continuously for their own survival and well-being—from the Great Migration to the twenty-first century. As an adult, she has continued to travel the world as a Black queer woman, across two decades and four countries—from Japan to the US and then Australia to Germany, where she has settled for now.
Throughout her moves, Neal threads her personal story of immigration with local Black histories and racial politics to provide context for her own experiences. The result is both a crucial examination of how racism plays a foundational role in modern-day immigration systems and a tender tribute to immigrants and their stories.
An unwavering interrogation of colonialism and policy, love and loss, hypocrisy and resistance, My Pisces Heart demands meaningful conversation about not only the ways in which we live with our histories, but also how they live through us—urging an honest dialogue on why the West continues to grapple with its past and visualize its future.
"A detailed, nuanced, researched, historically important account of systemic racism in the many places the author has sought to make a home. This relatable, important book stretches readers' understanding of nationalism into globalism and of home into a complex concept for those whose homes create racialized harm ... Readers of Neal's book will be challenged in the best of ways." —Booklist (starred review)
"Neal's writing can sometimes be dry, but her questing narrative is driven by this powerful point: 'Black life enriches every corner of the world. More importantly, Black life deserves to exist in any part of the world, for no reason whatsoever.' A welcome and fresh perspective on global travel." —Kirkus Reviews
"Jennifer Neal's My Pisces Heart is a lucid account of a life lived in, and amidst, the world. Beginning with the rich and under-narrated history of African American migration in the US and traveling outward to Asia, Europe and Australia, this book—like the best travel narratives—is curious, rich and transporting." —Zinzi Clemmons, author of What We Lose
"This is a captivating and unflinchingly honest account of the highs and lows of being a black woman out in the world, coupled with a detailed history of the many global perceptions of race that is both eye-opening and informative. As a black woman who has also lived and worked in Asia, Australia and Europe, so many of Neal's observations resonate deeply." —Fiona Williams, author of The House of Broken Bricks
"My Pisces Heart is a much-needed excavation of what it means to be a migrant of colour in our present world. Jennifer Neal offers a masterclass in politically-engaged memoir: rarely have I encountered a book so nuanced, gracefully entwining deep research with lived experience. Whether you live life in motion or stay put, this book is essential reading." —Jessica J. Lee, author of Dispersals
This information about My Pisces Heart was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jennifer Neal is an American Australian author, artist, and occasional standup comedian. Her work has been published in NPR, Playboy, Gay Magazine, The Root, The Erotic Review, The Cut, and many other publications. She is a MacDowell Fellow and Pushcart Prize-nominated essayist. My Pisces Heart is her second book.
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