Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
is a writer whose first book, HARLEM IS NOWHERE, will be published by Little, Brown & Company in January 2011, and by Granta Books in the UK during Summer 2011.
Her publisher's website about the book is here
You can contact her agent here
12.13.10: HARLEM IS NOWHERE excerpted in the January 2011 issue of HARPER's MAGAZINE, on newsstands now!
12.06.10: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Q&A: "Harlem Revisited: PW Talks with Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts"
11.01.10: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY features HARLEM in a starred review: "Rhodes-Pitts weaves a glittering living tapestry..."
Posts
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts has crafted a Harlem book that fluently and lyrically assays the geography, mythography, ethnography, and dream books of the fabled Black Mecca. It is also a record of her own insightful wanderings about uptown’s still mean, mirthful, romantic, but now highly marketable streets. What Rhodes-Pitts contributes to the Harlem chronicles that others have only vaguely glimpsed is how eloquently, extravagantly, and defiantly the people rooted there take ownership of Harlem storytelling every damn day.
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts has written a very striking meditation on Harlem as a place and a symbol, and at a time when Harlem is changing profoundly. She is a brilliant addition to the literature on Harlem that reaches back to James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, to Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. But hers is most definitely a fresh, new voice. There is a certain graceful cool, an unfailing aptness of tone, in her writing. HARLEM IS NOWHERE tells you things that you didn’t know you didn’t know about Harlem.
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts has written a beautiful account of Harlem that tells us as much about the author, her life, her tastes, her politics, and her unique sensibility as it does about this extraordinary part of Manhattan. As a result, HARLEM IS NOWHERE is much more than a work of urban history; it is a work of literature.
In this beautiful and inventive book, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts finds – in a stray photograph, the corridors of a library, a wax museum, or a sidewalk chalk tract – pathways that lead us through and around another Harlem, interior to the ones we have known, and unforgettable. Written in the visionary documentary tradition of James Agee, Walter Benjamin, and Ralph Ellison, HARLEM IS NOWHERE is a work of great imagination and quiet splendor.
Audio
Profile
Summary
Experience
- Mar 2001 - PresentWriter / The Freedwomen's BureauPublications include: Africana.com, TheAtlantic.com, Biblio: a review of books (India), Black Issues Book Review, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe (Ideas section), Honey, The Houston Press, TheNation.com, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Nylon, Outlook Traveller (India), The San Antonio Express-News, The Times Literary Supplement (UK), Trace, Transition, Untold (UK),The Women’s Review of Books
Education
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1996 - 2000Harvard UniversityA.B. in Afro-American Studies and Visual & Environmental Studies (Filmmaking Track)
Additional Information
Posts
Sharifa profiled in Italian ELLE, September 2008. Translation to come! Click here to download PDF of the whole article.
Sharifa is interviewed at the very end of the piece.
Sharifa introduction and reading begins around 28:46
Audio
Posts
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Group Reading, “Hurricane Clarisse Women Writers Salon: Inaugural Event,” Hotel Griffou, New York, NY; July 18, 2010
- Joint reading with Alice Albinia, “True Story: KGB Bar Nonfiction Night,” KGB Bar, New York; NY, May 11, 2010
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Solo reading, A Studio in the Woods Artist-in-Residence Works in Progress, New Orleans African American Museum; April 7, 2010
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Group reading of American writers, Atelier Menilmontant, Paris, France; December 5, 2009
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Co-producer, “A Staged Reading of Adrienne Kennedy’s ‘Sleep Deprivation Chamber’ & Community Forum on Police Brutality, Harlem Stage, New York , NY; August 17, 2009
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Panelist, “An Evening with Chimurenga Magazine,” The Kitchen, New York, N.Y.; October 8, 2008
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Co-producer and presenter, “A Bastille Day Tribute to Aime Cesaire”, The Shrine in Harlem, July 14, 2008
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Guest Lecturer, New York University, “Harlem and Its Landmarks”; June 11, 2008
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“Artists and Influence” interview of Xenobia Bailey at the Hatch-Billops Collection, New York; May 4, 2008
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Guest Lecturer, African-American Literary Arts Series, Lehman College, New York; April 16, 2008
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“Breaking Ground” public forum held by Bill T. Jones, featured presenter; Harlem Stage, February 26, 2008
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“Between the Lines” group reading, Brooklyn Academy of Music, co-sponsored by A Public Space, New York; December 6, 2007
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US-UK Fulbright Commission Scholars Forum, Houses of Parliament, London, England; January 18, 2007
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Group Reading for Rona Jaffe Prize at New York University, New York; September 15, 2006
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Group reading for Granta magazine (UK) “The View from Africa” tour, Harvard University; February 28, 2006
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Solo reading, Sunday Salon, The Studio Museum in Harlem - New York, NY; May 22, 2005
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Live radio presentation of radio drama based on essay “Lenox Terminal,” Radiodays exhibition, De Appel Center for Contemporary Art - Amsterdam, The Netherlands; April 22, 2005
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Panelist “Transition 101,” Small Press Book Center Annual Fair - New York, NY; December 6, 2004
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Reading, Akashic Press and Soft Skull Books night at Barbes Bar - Brooklyn, NY; October 14, 2004
