Conversations with Kiese Laymon (Literary Conversations Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496859049 ISBN 13: 9781496859044

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2025

Synopsis

In over a dozen interviews, Conversations with Kiese Laymon provides an in-depth look at author Kiese Laymon as an educator, creative writer, activist, family member, and Mississippian. Interviews capture surprising insights into Laymon’s life and craft. Within these pages, Laymon talks about his engagement with other writers, including Richard Wright, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty. These revelations situate his memoir, Heavy, among other great Mississippi autobiographies and memoirs, such as Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings, Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, and Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive. In other interviews, he discusses his obsession with revision and deftly fields questions about pop culture, politics, and Black masculinity, along with a host of other pressing contemporary issues.

As the first collection of its kind, Conversations with Kiese Laymon serves as the perfect introduction to studying Laymon. The cross section of interviews included reflects Laymon’s humility, while simultaneously celebrating his accomplishments. Most importantly, the interviews reflect his stature as a major American literary figure. With topics ranging from hip-hop and family to politics and everything in between, this volume provides an unfiltered look at the prolific Southern writer in his own words.

About this title

About the Author

Constance Bailey is assistant professor of African American literature and folklore at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on Black women’s comedy and humor, Black speculative fiction, and African American folklore/oral traditions.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496859049
• ISBN 13: 9781496859044
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 156
• Editor: Bailey Constance