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How a Color Tells the Story of My People
by Imani Perry
A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry.
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong's question, "What did I do to be so Black and blue?" In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world's favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.
Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as "Blue Black." The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.
Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.
Book Club Reading List 2026
...Divide by Cristina Henriquez Feb 11 - The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden Mar 11 - Audition by Katie Kitamura Apr 8 - Endling by Maria Reva May 13 - Black in Blues by Imani Perry Jun 10 - Good Material by Dolly Alderton July – no meeting Aug 12 - The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Sep 9 - Flesh by David Szalay Oc...
-Anne_Glasgow
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (09-18-2025)
I loved Black in Blues so much! I hope you enjoy the beautiful writing of Imani Perry.
-Anne_Glasgow
Kirkus finalists announced!
FICTION https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-3077-0015-5 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hogarth) https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780063318779 The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Mariner Books) https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593730089 Isola by Allegra Goodman (Dial Pres...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/2/2025)
I just finished Long Division by Kiese Laymon. It's one in a line of books I had to grit my teeth to finish. I started Black in Blues by Imani Perry. There's clearly something great here, but I've not been in the right mood for it.
-Robin_G
What books have you enjoyed so far in 2025, what books are you looking forward to reading?
My best of the first half of 2025: 5⭐️ Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black Black in Blues by Imani Perry Freedom is a Feast by Alejandro Puyana The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni 4.5⭐️ The Power Broker by Robert Caro The Slip by Lucas Schaefer Spell Fre...
-Anne_Glasgow
What are you reading this week? (5/8/2025)
@Barbara_B1 if you enjoy South to America I strongly recommend Imani Perry's newest which in Black in Blues. It's fantastic!
-Anne_Glasgow
What are you reading this week? (04/10/2025)
This week I finished Black in Blues: How Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry. This series of essays were often poetic and lyrical. Several of the essays resonated with me and I rated the book 3 out of 5. I also finished listening to Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The US, Central Amer...
-Laura_K
Good nonfiction books for book clubs?
...discussion book. Kate Moore has two books that cover topics worth discussing: The Radium Girls and The Woman They Could Not Silence. I just finished Black in Blues by Imani Perry and it has tons of topics for further reading and discussion. The Shadow Docket by Steve Vladeck is a bit of a challenge for the non lawyer but it is...
-Anne_Glasgow
"National Book Award winner Perry offers surprising revelations about the connection between the color blue and Black identity as she explores myth and literature, art and music, folklore and film...An innovative cultural history." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] lyrical meditation...Perry synthesizes an impressive range of research into a sinewy, pulsing narrative that positions the past as an active, living force in the present. Readers will be swept up." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Packed with cultural references to Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Miles Davis, and Picasso's African-inspired Blue Period, this is a fascinating and creative work of popular anthropology...Original and affecting." —Booklist (starred review)
"Imani Perry's work is brilliant and lyrical as ever! How clearly she assesses the history of Black and Blue, knitting them together with language both precise and haunting. This book is a great gift, in that it allowed me to see the world anew with Perry's clear-eyed insight. How Perry allows me to understand my Blue better, too!" —Jesmyn Ward, author of Let Us Descend and Sing, Unburied, Sing
"Black in Blues is a stunningly original journey in search of the historical origins of the very soul of African American life and culture. Along the way, Perry shows, with telling detail and in engaging prose, how 'The Blues' became Black, and how Black people became 'Blues People.'" —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"With Black in Blues, Imani Perry establishes herself as the most important interpreter of Black life in our time. With intellectual skill, an artist's eye, and the beauty of her pen, she powerfully tells the story of our people through the color blue. This is an extraordinary book." —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again and We Are the Leaders
This information about Black in Blues 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.
Imani Perry is the author of South to America, winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Perry's other books include Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, winner of the 2019 Bograd-Weld Biography Prize from the Pen America Foundation; Breathe: A Letter to My Sons; Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation; and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem. Perry lives between Philadelphia and Cambridge with her two sons.
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