A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Looking Back on 50 Years of Tennessee Books

The years from 2006 to 2010 brought a shocking financial crisis and the global Great Recession that followed, but there was happier news in the Tennessee book world, as well as a new outlet for reporting it: Chapter 16 was launched in September 2009. This seventh installment of the 50 Books / HT50 series includes two Pulitzer Prize winners, a riveting account of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and two highly praised novels.

Looking Back on 50 Years of Tennessee Books

The books in this installment of the 50 Books / HT50 series are a varied lot — two novels, one nonfiction book, and two poetry collections, including a Pulitzer Prize winner. All the authors have strong ties to the South, however, and two are Tennessee natives.

Afrofuturism and the Art of Seeing

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Black authors, along with visual artists, musicians, designers, and activists, have long learned to zip into the cloak of art we now call Afrofuturism to imagine possible futures that embrace truly liberated Black bodies and stories. Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, an anthology edited by Memphis native Jesse J. Holland, joins this tradition through multiple perspectives on the world of Marvel’s T’Challa.

Desolation Rowboat

Cormac McCarthy made his name and fame in the West, but his most enduring character was Knoxville river rat Cornelius Suttree.

Looking Back on 50 Years of Tennessee Books

The beginning of the 21st century brought Tennessee a new sports team, a rowdy anti-tax protest, and the publication of a controversial book.

Looking Back on 50 Years of Tennessee Books

Tennessee was connected to some exceptional literary achievements during the second half of the 1990s, including a Pulitzer Prize for poetry awarded to a native son and a legendary journalist’s acclaimed book about the extraordinary young civil rights activists who worked to end segregation in Nashville.

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