Bøger af Maurice Carlos Ruffin

"When Adebimpe is ten, she is sold with her mother Sanite to plantation owner John du Marche. He soon renames her Ady but Sanite never lets her daughter forget who she really is: a person who can read and write and understand numbers. Most importantly, Sanite reminds Ady that she must never reveal these abilities to a white person, especially not her true name. Tasked with maintaining du Marche's home in vibrant New Orleans, Ady takes in the city and starts to envision life beyond her dire circumstances. One day, she notices a beautiful stranger, radiant and poised with a colorful Tignon wrapped regally around her head. Ady realizes that she is a Free Woman. Inexplicably drawn to her, but not knowing who she is or what she does, Ady begins to search for answers"--

"Maurice Carlos Ruffin has an uncanny ability to reveal the hidden corners of a place we thought we knew. These perspectival, character-driven stories center on the margins and are deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture. In "Beg Borrow Steal," a boy relishes time spent helping his father find work after just coming home from prison; in "Ghetto University," a couple struggling financially turns to crime after hitting rock bottom; in "Before I Let You Go," a woman who's been in NOLA for generations fights to keep her home; in "Fast Hands, Fast Feet," an Army vet and a runaway teen find companionship while sleeping under a bridge; in "Mercury Forges," a flash fiction piece among several in the collection, a group of men hurriedly make their way to a home where an elderly gentleman lives, trying to reach him before the water from Hurricane Katrina does; and in the title story, a young man works the street corners of the French Quarter, trying to achieve a freedom not meant for him. These stories are intimate invitations to hear, witness, and imagine lives at once regional but largely universal, and undeniably New Orleanian"--