In every mirror she's Black
Record details
- ISBN: 1728240395
- ISBN: 9781728240398
- ISBN: 1728240387
- ISBN: 9781728240381
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Physical Description:
1 online resource
remote - Publisher: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2021]
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note: | Front Cover -- Front Flap -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Part One -- One -- Two -- Three -- Four -- Five -- Six -- Part Two -- Seven -- Eight -- Nine -- Ten -- Eleven -- Twelve -- Part Three -- Thirteen -- Fourteen -- Fifteen -- Sixteen -- Seventeen -- Part Four -- Eighteen -- Nineteen -- Twenty -- Twenty-One -- Twenty-Two -- Twenty-Three -- You Are Never Alone -- Author's Note -- Reading Group Guide -- A Conversation with the Author -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author -- Back Flap -- Back Cover |
Source of Description Note: | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Women, Black -- Fiction Women, Black |
Genre: | Electronic books. Electronic books. Fiction. |
Other Formats and Editions
Electronic resources
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2021 July #1
Award-winning journalist and photographer à kerström enters the world of fiction with a striking debut that portrays three Black women brought together by their interactions with an eccentric Swedish CEO and millionaire. Kemi Adeyemi is a top marketing executive but a failure at love. So when Jonny von Lundin offers her a job with double her present salary and her own department in a new country, it seems like the perfect opportunity to reignite her dating life. Brittany-Rae Johnson is a model-turned-flight-attendant swept up into Jonny's lavish lifestyle and obsession with her. Refugee Muna Saheed has a chance at securing a new home, thanks to Jonny hiring her to clean his firm's offices. As entertaining as it is revealing, à kerström's novel has readers hoping that each of these women is able to break free from toxic expectations and achieve her every dream and ambition. Along the way, à kerström also delivers poignant commentary on Swedish culture and the price Black women pay by virtue of the color of their skin. A guaranteed favorite for fans of Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Americanah (2013). Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2021 September
In Every Mirror She's BlackNigerian American author Lá»Âlá ÃkÃnmádé à kerström's debut novel is as much a liberating battle cry as it is a searing, multifaceted examination of the hearts and minds of Black women navigating white-dominated spaces. Told from multiple perspectives, In Every Mirror She's Black follows three Black women whose lives intersect in Sweden due to one wealthy white man named Jonny von Lundin.
Kemi, a first-generation American, is offered a lucrative position as Jonny's marketing firm's new diversity and inclusion adviser after a campaign's racial insensitivity makes international headlines. Brittany-Rae is a former model now working as a first-class flight attendant, which is where she first captures Jonny's attention and is soon swept up in a passionate romance with him that appears to be the stuff of fairy tales. Finally, there is Muna, a Muslim refugee from Somalia who is the only surviving member of her family to be granted asylum in Sweden and now carves out a living as a janitorial worker at Jonny's company.Â
Despite Kemi's, Brittany-Rae's and Muna's vastly different backgrounds and circumstances, all three women initially believe that Sweden (and Jonny) could be the answer to their prayers and an opportunity for a fresh start, unburdened by their past and its traumas. Unfortunately, each woman soon learns that Sweden's "utopia" poses its own set of significant challenges and that its principles of inclusivity and tolerance only extend as far as the whitewashed homogeneity of the population. For immigrants and people of color, a hidden dark side roils just below Sweden's glittering facade, transforming the country from refuge to prison for each of these women.
à kerström, who moved to Sweden in 2009, has crafted an absorbing, if unsettling, narrative that dissects the realities of what it means to be a Black woman in the world today. She writes with genuine empathy for her characters and sheds light on their struggles with the understanding that there is no single Black experience. Rather than shying away from or oversimplifying difficult and complex topics, à kerström has effectively packaged themes of racism, immigration, fetishism and otherness into an engrossing story that will enlighten its readers, regardless of their nationality or race.Â
Copyright 2021 BookPage Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2021 September #1
The lives of three very different Black women intertwine around the enigmatic chief executive of a Swedish marketing company. Neither Muna Saheed, Brittany-Rae Johnson, nor Kemi Adeyemi ever envisioned themselves living in Sweden's capitalâa city, Kemi muses, so magnetic that "if Stockholm was a man and she'd met him in a nightclub, she would have propelled herself right away to ask him to dance." And though each hails from different backgroundsâKemi is a young Nigerian American advertising executive quickly rising up the professional ranks; Brittany's a disillusioned Jamaican American model-turnedâflight attendant; and Muna's a traumatized Somali refugeeâthey share a vital trait: Each, in Swedish society, is marked as a Black woman and foreign transplant before anything else. Each, too, is linked to Johan "Jonny" von Lundin, the CEO of von Lundin Marketing and seemingly a manifestation of Sweden's status quoâracially, culturally, and economically. In three interlocking narratives that eventually draw the women into closer orbit, each fights to carve a path within insular Swedish society. Kemi, lured to von Lundin Marketing for a position as a director of global diversity, must continually prove herself to her colleagues amid entrenched stereotypes of Black and American women. As her budding relationship with Jonny grows serious, Brittany grapples with the isolating, classist milieu he lives within. Meanwhile, Muna, who cleans the von Lundin offices, tries to stitch together a makeshift family to replace the one she's lost. As the women contend with Swedish language, norms, and expectations, it becomes clear that as long as the interests of Black women remain subservient to White feminism, each must construct her own life template and determine whether its personal sacrifices are worthwhile. à kerström paints an admirably rich portrait of a particular cultureâits nuances, norms, and idiosyncrasiesâraising important questions of prejudice, racial bias, agency, and belonging. Her characters, however, can feel predictable, and her writing, especially in romance scenes, often resorts to clichés. A novel with thematic depth and complexity sometimes undercut by flat characters. Copyright Kirkus 2021 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2021 April
A TEDx speaker recently named among the most influential Black Traveler bloggers in the world, Nigerian American author à kerström is based in Sweden, where she sets her adult fiction debut. The stories of three Black womenâan American executive, a model, and a Somali refugeeâare all linked to an influential white Swedish man.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2021 July #1
Three Black women in search of a better life end up in Sweden in this convincing debut from Nigerian writer à kerström. Linking all three is wealthy, enigmatic CEO Johan "Jonny" von Lundin. Kemi Adeyemi, 34, a Nigerian American professional, is headhunted by Jonny's Stockholm PR firm. Muna Saheed, a 20-year-old janitor at Jonny's firm, fled from Somalia two years earlier, leaving behind her family and the man she was in love with. Flight attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson, 38, was born in America to first-generation immigrants from Jamaica, and her life changes when she meets Jonny on a plane, then moves to Stockholm and marries him, before learning he has a racial fetish and some heavy baggage involving an ex. The profusion of themes and plotlines, all tenuously connected to Jonny, can feel a bit unwieldy, but à kerström powerfully conveys all of the women's experiences with race as Muna is pushed to the limit with racist taunts from strangers and Kemi gradually comes to terms with the realities of the city's currents of racism ("Stockholm tricked her. Seduced her with its beauty and then turned into an ugly monster in front of her"). All in all, it's a worthy effort.
Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly.Agent: Jessica Craig, Craig Literary. (Sept.)