Harare Review of Books

124 pages.

First published Aug 1, 2022 (Anti-Oedipus Press); paperback expected Nov 1, 2023.

Non-fiction anthology.

Eugen Bacon makes me think, and I love that about her work. In this collection, she examines various aspects of Blackness, from cultural production, to living and dying while Black. And in a very moving essay, Black Is Not Blak, from a perspective I have definitely never encountered before, she tells of her experience as African Australian after coming up against a misunderstanding rooted in racism and a failure of solidarity between two historically oppressed peoples.

I enjoyed too her examination of genre and sub-genre: Black speculative fiction in Afrofuturism, cyberfunk, blacktastic, steamfunk, dieselfunk, black-tech, rococoa, and blaxploitation.

Decades afer the groundbreaking work of authors such as Toni Morrison, Samuel R. Delany, and Octavia Butler, black speculative fiction is more visible and thriving than ever. Through invented worlds, technologies, and incursions of the supernatural or the uncanny, more and more black speculative-fiction authors are offering stories of curiosity, diversity, hope, possibilities, probabilities, even dire warnings about our place in the universe. (p11)

In addition to all of this, Bacon is a teacher, and these essays are full of lessons about craft, including [[world-building]] and slipstream writing (which I’ve learnt is not a genre or sub-genre of its own). There’s also a summary, if such it can be, of African creation myths. Finally, there’s a tribute to Borges in the form of a story/essay, Inhabitation—Genni and I.

An Earnest Blackness deservedly won the 2023 British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction. Eugen Bacon’s intellect, her unusual approach to fiction, and her impeccable understanding of Black fiction make her an undeniable authority, and this is an excellent reference book. Thank you to her, to Stanley Ashenbach, and to Anti-Oedipus Press for access.

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