Racial Fictions

A powerful critique of the racial myths that shape our world

Drawing on a rich tapestry of historical analysis, literary criticism, and cultural theory, Hazel V. Carby interrogates our racial fictions, which have been constructed, maintained, and weaponized across centuries to justify systems of domination and exploitation.

Traversing temporalities and global boundaries, Racial Fictions reveals the inter-connectedness of America’s domestic racial struggles and international colonial ambitions. Carby challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the persistence of white supremacy, the violence embedded in historical memory, and the silencing of marginalized voices. The result is a profound exploration of the intricate and enduring legacies of race, imperialism, and violence in the formation of modern identities and nation-states.Hazel V. Carby is the author of Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist, Cultures in Babylon: Feminism from Black Britain to African America, and Race Men. She is Emeritus Professor of African American Studies and American Studies at Yale University. Her memoir Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands was a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year in 2019 and won the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding in 2020.