Phillip B. Williams – författare

Winner of the 2022 American Book Award Finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book AwardFinalist for Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award for Gay PoetryNamed one of the Best Books of 2021 by The Boston Globe and Lit HubFrom the critically acclaimed author of Thief in the Interior who writes with "a lucid, unmitigated humanity" (Boston Review), a startling new collection about revolt and renewalMutiny: a rebellion, a subversion, an onslaught. In poems that rebuke classical mythos and western canonical figures, and embrace Afro-Diasporanfolk and spiritual imagery, Phillip B. Williams conjures the hell of being erased, exploited, and ill-imagined and then, through a force and generosity of vision, propels himself into life, selfhood, and a path forward. Intimate, bold, and sonically mesmerizing, Mutiny addresses loneliness, desire, doubt, memory, and the borderline between beauty and tragedy. With a ferocity that belies the tenderness and vulnerability at the heart of this remarkable collection, Williams honors the transformative power of anger, and the clarity that comes from allowing that anger to burn clean.

From award-winning poet and novelist Phillip B. Williams, an astonishing new collection that revels in the possibility of creating one's own lightCaptivating for both its grandeur and intimacy, Lift Every Voice explores the capacity for the past to be both a source of dread and empowerment, an unshakable reminder of violence and an indelible testament to the endurance of love. In virtuosic poems that are wise, musical, richly layered, and saturated with vivid imagery, Williams honors a mother “who knew seven ways to say bitch under her breath,” a grandma whose smile “reflects the world,” and wonders at “the impossible lift” of forgiveness. Lift Every Voice is a staggering tribute to personal and collective evolutions, a vital chorus that answers only to God, community, and the empowered self.

"A beautifully written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom. Williams crafts an expansive, original world filled with characters who linger long after the final page" Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing HalfIn the mid-1800s, Saint, an enigmatic and powerful conjure woman, always flanked by a silent companion, travels the South annihilating plantations and liberating the enslaved by means of purposeful violence and powerful magic. She founds a town for those she has freed - and for them alone. They name the town Ours. Surrounded by an impenetrable magical border raised by Saint's powers, Ours is invisible to the outer world and sits blissfully away from prying eyes and violent hands. Saint's mission is to kill slavery - to scourge its damage from the minds of her charges and to keep them safe forever. Under Saint's watchful eye and away from the terrible weight of their enslavement, the townsfolk become neighbours, friends and lovers. They build each other's homes and care for each other's children. They love and grieve together. Then two mysterious strangers, Frances and Joy, appear, inexplicably crossing the invisible border from the outer world. And soon, Saint's lost past and fateful present begin to coalesce in ways that will either prove Ours' salvation or lay it bare to a world that would destroy it.Phillip B. Williams' astonishing debut novel is both a sweeping epic shot through with magic, and an intimate, elemental story about what it means to build a community and to try to build a life in the shadow of, and around the damage wrought by, slavery.

In the mid-1800s, a fearsome and powerful conjure woman named Saint annihilates plantations in the South to rescue the enslaved. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours. In this miraculous place, a community takes root where the people may flourish. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint's creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the safety and freedom of Ours might be yet another form of bondage.Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature, Black surrealism, mythology and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of huge vision and talent.