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  • Published: 15 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143131885
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $36.00

Black No More




It's New Year's Day in 1933 in New York City and Max Disher, a young black man, has just found out that a certain Dr. Junius Crookman has discovered a mysterious process that allows people to bleach their skin all the way white--a new way to "solve the American race problem." Max, who's tired of being rejected by women because of his dark skin, leaps at the opportunity. After a brief stay at the Crookman Sanitarium, where he receives the Black-No-More procedure, he becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man who's able to attain everything he's ever wanted: money, power, a beautiful wife, and good liquor. But as America becomes whiter and whiter, it gets more and more dangerous.

In Black No More, George S. Schuyler attacks myths of white supremacy and racial purity and caricaturizes prominent African-American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois, C. J. Walker, and Marcus Garvey. Black No More is a hilarious--and frightening--satire of America's obsession with race.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The landmark comic satire that asks, “What would happen if all black people in America turned white?”—for fans of the Oscar-nominated film American Fiction

A Penguin Classic

It’s New Year’s Day 1933 in New York City, and Max Disher, a young black man, has just found out that a certain Dr. Junius Crookman has discovered a mysterious process that allows people to bleach their skin white—a new way to “solve the American race problem.” Max leaps at the opportunity, and after a brief stay at the Crookman Sanitarium, he becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man who is able to attain everything he has ever wanted: money, power, good liquor, and the white woman who rejected him when he was black.

Lampooning myths of white supremacy and racial purity and caricaturing prominent African American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois, Madam C. J. Walker, and Marcus Garvey, Black No More is a masterwork of speculative fiction and a hilarious satire of America’s obsession with race.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

  • Published: 15 January 2018
  • ISBN: 9780143131885
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $36.00

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

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Praise for Black No More

"A liberating and lacerating critique of American racial madness, capitalism, and white superiority . . . In the era of Trump and Rachel Dolezal, Beyonce's 'Formation' and that radical Pepsi commercial starring Kendall Jenner, of the rise and fall of Tiger Woods' land of Cablinasia, and of Michael Jackson's 'race lift' and subsequent death, Schuyler's wild, misanthropic, take-no-prisoners satire of American life seems more relevant than ever." --Danzy Senna, from the Introduction