Hanif Abdurraqib

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His writing brings music criticism, social history, autobiography, and attention to performance into the same frame. A Little Devil in America considers Black performance across dance, television, comedy, music, games, and everyday life, moving between figures such as Josephine Baker and Aretha Franklin alongside Abdurraqib's own memories. Random House published the essay collection, which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal and was a National Book Award finalist. Abdurraqib received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021 for a body of work distinguished by its blend of popular music and personal narrative. His other books include They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Go Ahead in the Rain, the poetry collections The Crown Ain't Worth Much and A Fortune for Your Disaster, and There's Always This Year.