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A cultural critic for our times, Hanif Abdurraqib seamlessly blends personal narrative with observations on music, race, and now sports. He’s joined by journalist and podcast host Shereen Marisol Meraji to talk about his new book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension.
Since his 2016 debut poetry collection The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing has earned him numerous accolades as a poet, essayist, and music critic. Easily moving from emotionally riveting examinations of Black identities to academic explorations of punk scenes to analyses of contemporary popular artists, Abdurraqib’s work is full of uninhibited curiosity, revolutionary honesty, and a singular intelligence. His first essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Review, and Esquire. His forthcoming memoir, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, traces his relationship with basketball while uncovering how we decide who is deserving of success.
Shereen Marisol Meraji is a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, where she also serves as the head of audio. She is a founder of NPR’s award-winning podcast Code Switch, which Apple Podcasts named its first-ever “Show of the Year.”
Tickets include a copy of There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension.
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Photo by Kendra Bryant