Book Talk with Tochi Onyebuchi: Racebook
Tochi Onyebuchi , author of celebrated titles like Riot Baby, Goliath, Harmattan Season, and more, will bless the bookspace with a talk about his newest nonfiction release, [Racebook: A Personal History of the Internet](https://www.possiblefuturesbooks.com/item/wLubr6H3tUamkwaLq__WA)_. This memoir in essays explores Black folks’ growing relationship with the internet and its unique cultural impact, the communities it builds, the original hope for the future it might create, and the inequalities that are still perpetuated by the platform. Join us for what promises to be a profound discussion.
More about the book:
From the author of Hugo and NAACP Image Award finalist Riot Baby, an original memoir in essays that interrogates how identities are shaped and informed in online spaces and how the relationship between race and the Internet has changed in his three decades online.
When Tochi Onyebuchi realized that his acclaimed science fiction and fantasy storytelling career had been centrally preoccupied with race, it prompted him to consider his responsibilities as a Black writer in the Internet age. Excavating the Internet of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Racebook explores how the writer and public intellectual Onyebuchi is today, was formed in that crucible.
Beginning with the current moment when everything, including personal identity, is a matter of dispute, and tracing his online persona in reverse chronological order back to Web 1.0’s promises of greater equality and a bright digital future, Onyebuchi deftly examines the evolution of internet culture and the ways that culture has shifted in the ensuing decades. From the ever-changing nature of personal writing and free expression, to gaming, manga, fandom, and virtual reality—Onyebuchi examines the internet alongside works of literature both classic and new, and asks if our vision for what is possible has really broadened. And given the inequities Black people are still subject to, on and off the page, does the Internet only amplify our failures of imagination?
A new, compelling investigation of race through the lens of the modern Internet age, and a profound intellectual journey in pursuit of community online, Onyebuchi argues for a liberation of the individual behind the code, ultimately asking “Is this a race book or is it not? Is it either-or? Can it be both-and? Can I?”
More about Tochi:
Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath. His previous fiction includes Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Awards and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Ignyte Award for Best Novella, and the World Fantasy Award; the Beasts Made of Night series; and the War Girls series. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and elsewhere. His non-fiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places.
He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
He currently resides in Connecticut.