Reginald McKnight Selected Works

In this prize-winning author's most ambitious book to date, an African-American anthropologist trying to "find himself" in Senegal instead finds himself caught in a surreal web of deception and betrayal.

Bertrand, a young African-American anthropologist, has ostensibly come to Senegal to do field research. But in truth, he left his home in Denver to gain a fresh perspective on his troubled marriage. Struggling to fit in with his new Senegalese family—Alaine, his wife Kene, and their young daughter—Bertrand finds himself, for the first time in his life, haunted by surreal and increasingly violent dreams. His waking hours are no less sinister; unwittingly, it seems, Bertrand has become caught in the tension—sexual and otherwise—building between the married couple. His relations with the rest of the village community are also strained; he can't escape the sensation that he's being set up for a grand-scale betrayal. As his sense of isolation and alienation escalates, he comes to believe that not only his fragile sense of identity—but his very life—is at stake. A riveting tour de force, He Sleeps confirms Reginald McKnight's status as a writer of vivid imagination and exceptional talent.

The tale of a young African-American man's desultory quest for his own identity while living amidst the mysteries of modern-day Senegal. Battling a malarial fever, Evan Norris is taken in by the family of a powerful Marabou and finds himself absorbed in a world that is both ancient and modern.

Idi, a Senegalese English translator, relates a group of stories that capture the black experience in a range of African and Afro-American voices, telling of adolescence, racism, and beliefs lost and found.

"Winner of the 1988 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, these 10 short stories reflect variously on the black experience in middle America and an anthropologist's discoveries among the folk in Senegal. In 'Mali Is Very Dangerous,' the narrator of the African stories, an American, tells of a rascally street vendor selling a charm that fends off knife blows; Idi, in the story that bears his name, recounts his uncle's practice of using myth to approach Western technology. The title piece refers to a Muslim farmer fearful of death who becomes entranced after recklessly looking at a solar eclipse. The stories set in the U.S. examine the lives of young blacks living in predominantly white towns. A college student muses about her confused white boyfriend; a black Jew on a school football team discusses his troubled friendship with a latter-day hippie; an old racist just barely adjusts to the New South." —Publishers Weekly

This collection of short stories, by award-winning author Reginald McKnight, explores the rich and complex experience of the African-American middle class, from a small southern classroom to a mythical Africa to suburban streets. Outrageously inventive, disarmingly comic, and urgently disturbing, this collection brings a disparate cast of characters face to face with fault lines of identity and the limbo of living between cultures.

"In the deeply satisfying title story, which won an O. Henry Award, an insecure 12-year-old, son of an Air Force sergeant who's away in Vietnam, defeats the school bully. The young hero is black, his tormentor is white, and the story tackles institutionalized racism and the hollowness of Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' as experienced in Waco, Tex. Even more impressive is 'Roscoe in Hell,' a supernatural yet scathingly realistic fantasy about a crack addict looking back on his life from the vantage point of a free-for-all party in his new abode, hell. 'Soul Food' mirrors the soul of a homeless pickpocket/ex-male prostitute. In the raucous 'Peacetime,' set in East L.A. in 1973, a sensitive, flute-playing Marine almost loses his virginity under the tutelage of two scary dudes. The fable 'Homunculus,' centered on a lovesick poet, is a pool of wisdom about art as both mediator and cannibalizer of life. A master of narrative pacing, novelist McKnight (I Get on the Bus) evokes a quicksand world where survival is a victory." —Publishers Weekly

With a superb ear for the voices of his characters, and a spare but riveting prose, Reginald McKnight examines the plight of the outsider, the alien. He populates these funny, disturbing, and lyrical stories with an unforgettable chorus of cultural hybrids: an American anthropologist compiling proverbs and seeking a magic elixir in Senegal; a multiethnic community of military officers, recruits, and maintenance staff wrestling with their prejudices; two awkward young boys trying to navigate friendship on a Louisiana army base. White Boys is Reginald McKnight's perfect evocation of America's literary heritage and ambition—an imaginative synergy of style, thought, and storytelling genius.