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When Did You First Realize You Were Black?

Provoked by the fraught relationship between the African continent and American culture in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, acclaimed Nigerian-American novelist Tochi Onyebuchi takes an emotional and intellectual journey through his own education in Blackness—his first loves, his introduction to politics, and his eventual commitment to the struggle.

Ranging from Paris to a Connecticut boarding school to a harrowing walk through the streets of Palestine, and touching on lessons from Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, Mohsin Hamid, August Wilson, Dear White People, and Black Panther, Onyebuchi blends memoir and cultural criticism to explore the ways in which identities, like diamonds, are pressurized into existence by suffering, and how “the other side of suffering is self-determination.”

(S)kinfolk culminates in a trip to Nigeria, the homeland, where the author realizes that “we share a future,” as Black Americans and Africans, on this “asymptotic journey” toward self-actualization.

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Riot Baby, Beasts Made of Night, Crown of Thunder, War Girls, and Rebel Sisters. He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and L’institut d’études politiques with a Master’s degree in Global Business Law.

“A moving blend of criticism and memoir…. Readers familiar with Americanah will appreciate the author’s insight, and those new to it will find Onyebuchi’s masterful integration of anecdote and criticism accessible. Full of fresh perspective, this is an eye-opener.” — Publishers Weekly

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