Black Empire

Name: Black Empire
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: George S. Schuyler
ISBN: 9780593670224

Author: George S. Schuyler, Brooks E. Hefner

Narrator: Landon Woodson

Unabridged: 12 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/31/2023

Categories: Fiction, Satire, African American & Black Fiction

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

A pioneering work of Afrofuturism and antiracist fiction by the author of Black No More, about a Black scientist who masterminds a worldwide conspiracy to take back the African continent from imperial powers

A Penguin Classic

“An amazing serial story of Black genius against the world” is how Black Empire was promoted upon its original publication as a serial in The Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1938. It tells the electrifying tale of Dr. Henry Belsidus, a Black scientific genius desperate to free his people from the crushing tyranny of racism. To do so, he concocts a plot to enlist a crew of Black intellectuals to help him take over the world, cultivating a global network to reclaim Africa from imperial powers and punish Europe and America for white supremacy and their crimes against the planet’s Black population.

At once a daring, high-stakes science fiction adventure and a strikingly innovative Afrofuturist classic, this controversial and fearlessly political work lays bare the ethical quandaries of exactly how far one should go in the name of justice.

* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of additional notes and information on the writings of George S. Schuyler.

About The Author

George S. Schuyler (1895–1977) was a satirist, critic, and eminent African American journalist of the Harlem Renaissance. He became the first Black journalist to attain national prominence and was known for his controversial opinions. In addition to Black Empire, he published the novels Black No More and Slaves Today, as well as several novellas and an autobiography. Brooks E. Hefner (editor/introducer) is a professor of English at James Madison University. He is the author of Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow and The Word on the Streets: The American Language of Vernacular Modernism, as well as the codirector of the National Endowment for the Humanities–funded digital humanities project Circulating American Magazines.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Cat on August 25, 2014

I’ve got to get it out of the way and admit that I don’t really like this book. Admittedly, reading it as a “book” is the first step in distorting the narrative experience because this is a collection of columns that satirist George S. Schuyler published in the Pittsburgh Courier in the late 1930s u......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on March 19, 2021

This bizarre collection of George S. Schuyler's serials is at first a madman-takes-over-the-world science fiction story. However, underneath that is a commentary of national and international events: the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the black-on-black slavery in Liberia, the fomenting war in Europe......more

Goodreads review by Kobe on June 27, 2018

You can really tell that it was a serial......more

Goodreads review by Norman on March 11, 2024

This book is composed of two connected short novels originally serialized in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1936-38. This novel could be seen as a precursor of today’s Afro-futurism. Dr. Henry Belsidus is a Black scientific genius, an anti-hero who starts a movement to found an independent African empire,......more

Goodreads review by Lauren on December 16, 2013

I guess you can say I kinda finished this book. I finished the first half and skimmed the second. The book was a little too detailed for my taste and I found it difficult to visualize the numerous characters (and keep them all straight). If I were back in college, I'd comment more on the Martha Gaski......more

Quotes

“An incredible science fiction novel . . . It’s just a fantastic book, filled with romance and war and politics. I loved this book, and I couldn’t have been more surprised by it.” ―Bill Goldstein, NBC’s Weekend Today in New York

“Imagine W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and Marcus Garvey rolled into one fascist superman, and there you have Dr. Henry Belsidus. . . . [Black Empire is] an Afrocentrist’s dream.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times Book Review

“Dr. Belsidus, a Harlem criminal mastermind, . . . is pulp fiction villainy at its best . . . like Fu Manchu before him and Ernst Blofeld after. . . . Readers today may still find themselves thrilled.” —Public Books

“Indispensable reading for anyone interested in early Afrofuturism . . . Searing in its indictment of entrenched racism . . . Rip-roaring yarns with sharp satirical points.” ―Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating . . . A proto-Afrofuturist potboiler poised between Black Panther and the works of Percival Everett . . . Lurid, pulpy fun.” ―Library Journal

“A fascinating piece of work . . . Fast-paced, action packed . . . A solid read―there’s good adventure here, and Schuyler tells his story quite well―and it’s also of literary-historical interest. The Penguin Classics edition is also an excellent one, from editor Brooks E. Hefner’s useful Introduction to the interesting appendices.” ―The Complete Review