Photo by Kendra Bryant
“I’ve never read a book more full of love—heartbreaking, poetic, rapturous…He loves basketball, his court, his block, his city, but most of all, his people, and he beautifully shares it in this indelible and mesmerizing book. Abdurraqib has written not only the most original sports book I’ve ever read but one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, period. . . . Utterly transcendent.”—Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams
“One of the most essential voices of his generation” (NPR), Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. Whether writing about Carly Rae Jepsen, A Tribe Called Quest, Nikola Tesla, or his mother, Abdurraqib beautifully fuses cultural commentary with reflective poetic language. He is the author of the poetry collections The Crown Ain’t Worth Much and A Fortune for Your Disaster; the essay collections They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Go Ahead In The Rain, and A Little Devil in America among others. His newest, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, is a personal reflection on what it means to make it, the notion of role models, the tension between excellence and expectation, and much more through explorations of basketball, life, and home.
Shereen Marisol Meraji is an award-winning journalist, as well as the founder, co-host and senior producer of Code Switch, NPR’s pre-eminent podcast about race and identity in America.
Tickets include a copy of Abdurraqib’s new essay collection There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension