Ishmael Reed and the ends of race

the long version

In his analysis of Ishmael Reed's fiction from the perspective of gender and race theory, Patrick McGee makes a case for the relevance of such fiction to the understanding of contemporary American and Black diasporic cultures. Taking into account Reed's feminist and political critics, McGee argues that Reed's work must be read as a critique of racial ideology. Beginning with questions of critical location and Reed's special understanding of diasporic cultural forms like vodun, the book goes on to examine Reed's paradoxical fictional world as a response - though not a resolution - to the contradictions of postmodern and postcolonial history. Ishmael Reed and the Ends of Race is an important new study of this fascinating and controversial writer.