Just Us: An American Conversation

In her book "Just Us," Claudia Rankine examines how contemporary America is divided by a culture war and explores real encounters with friends and strangers to find humane pathways through this moment of division. The book is a finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 02 September 2021
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

From the acclaimed author of Citizen and Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Claudia Rankine presents a captivating and thought-provoking sequel. Riveting, Bernardine Evaristo, TLS (Books of the Year) Brilliant, Gary Younge, New Statesman (Books of the Year) Timely and powerful, Fatima Bhutto, Financial Times One of our time's most incisive, brilliant, and necessary intellectuals, Seán Hewitt, Irish Times Ranking is a writer of genius, Jeremy Noel-Tod, Sunday Times At home and in government, contemporary America finds itself torn apart by a culture war, where aggression and defensiveness are on the rise. It is not alone. In such partisan conditions, how can humans best approach one another across our differences?

Taking the study of whiteness and white supremacy as a guiding light, Claudia Rankine explores a series of real encounters with friends and strangers—each disrupting the false comfort of spaces where our public and private lives intersect, like the airport, the theater, the dinner party, and the voting booth—and urges us to enter into the conversations that could offer the only humane pathways through this moment of division.

Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together and to breach the silence, guilt, and violence that surround whiteness. Brilliantly arranging essays, images, and poems along with the voices and rebuttals of others, it counterpoints Rankine's own text with facing-page notes and commentary, and closes with a bravura study of women confronting the political and cultural implications of dyeing their hair blonde. Wry, vulnerable, and prescient, this book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of race and identity in modern society.

Weight: 566g
Dimension: 129 x 198 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780141994086