A Genealogy of Resistance

A Genealogy of Resistance is the most personal and probing collection of essays by NourbeSe Philip, Trinidadian-Canadian author of Zong!, a book-length poem on the Zong slave massacre of 1781, and recipient of the 2024 Windham-Campbell prize for literature. In A Genealogy of Resistance, Philip considers her poetic practice, her relationship to language, place and history and the complications of living with a past that refuses to be silenced. In language of a unique intensity and brilliance, she provokes us to think about the ways history is created and re-created. The voices that populate her essays and poetry - figures from the past and from the African diaspora, often unnamed but not forgotten - demand our attention and ask us to rethink what we think we know about race, literature and history.