Diasporic Blackness:  The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, new book by sx salon book review editor, Vanessa K. Valdés. 

A Black Puerto Rican–born scholar, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874–1938) was a well-known collector and archivist whose personal library was the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. He was an autodidact who matched wits with university-educated men and women, as well as a prominent Freemason, a writer, and an institution-builder.

While he spent much of his life in New York City, Schomburg was intimately involved in the cause of Cuban and Puerto Rican independence. In the aftermath of the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898, he would go on to cofound the Negro Society for Historical Research and lead the American Negro Academy, all the while collecting and assembling books, prints, pamphlets, articles, and other ephemera produced by Black men and women from across the Americas and Europe. His curated library collection at the New York Public Library emphasized the presence of African peoples and their descendants throughout the Americas and would serve as an indispensable resource for the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. By offering a sustained look at the life of one of the most important figures of early twentieth-century New York City, this first book-length examination of Schomburg’s life suggests new ways of understanding the intersections of both Blackness and latinidad.

Read the first chapter here!

Issue 24 of sx salon features an edited version of a roundtable on digital publishing at the West Indian Literature Conference last October in which five editors of Caribbean digital platforms—Evelyn O’Callaghan, Kaiama L. Glover, Laurie N. Taylor, Patricia J. Saunders, and Kelly Baker Josephs—discuss managing the potentials and pitfalls of digital platforms. The issue's review section includes new publications in the field: Rachel L. Mordecai reviews Rosario Ferré’s Memoir, translated by Suzanne Hintz and Benigno Trigo; Ryan Joyce reviews Première nuit: Une anthologie du désir and Volcaniques: Une anthologie du plaisir, both edited by Léonora Miano; Alison Mc Letchie reviews Maurice St. Pierre’s Eric Williams and the Anticolonial Tradition: The Making of a Diasporan Intellectual; and Janelle Rodriques reviews Robert Antoni’s As Flies to Whatless Boys. Also included in this section is a review essay by Gary Wilder on questions of freedom and forms of marronage. 

In the interview section of sx salon 24, Opal Palmer Adisa reviews Shara McCallum’s newest collection of poetry, Madwoman, and includes a short conversation with the poet. And Nathan H. Dize interviews of Susan Pickford, translator of Anacaona by Jean Métellus. Poetry & Prose features a new poem by G. A. E. Griffin and short fiction by Kirk Budhooram. 

See the full table of contents here.

Coolie Coolie Viens

March 29 - May 24

Glenhyrst Gallery, Brantford

Opening Reception 7 pm, March 29

Organized with McIntosh Gallery, Western University

featuring collaborations with 

Wendy Nanan and Kelly Sinnapah Mary

The Gospel of Patrick 

March 31 - April 27

Whippersnapper Gallery, Toronto

God's On the Beach 

at Crossroads Gallery

Gosine's work is on the cover of Small Axe 46

Visit Andil Gosine's website: www.andilgosine.com