Asale Angel-Ajani presents 'Fugitive Archives'

An incisive, lyrical exploration of one family’s history that radically overturns American myths about race, violence, and belonging.

Third Place Books welcomes Asale Angel-Ajani to our Ravenna store for a conversation about her book Fugitive Archives: My Family and the American Myth of Belonging.

“Filled with wonders and mysteries, with plot twists and startling revelations, Fugitive Archives is unlike any other book you’ve read about race. Asale Angel-Ajani writes with boundless intelligence and empathy as she enters the haunted spaces of her family’s near and distant past. In the process, she uncovers the great secrets at the heart of that fraught, collective story called the United States of America.”
—Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls and Deep Down Dark

For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

Tickets:

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

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About Fugitive Archives. . .

Asale Angel-Ajani and her twin, the only Black children in a working-class white family, were shuffled between relatives, coming of age in a country that offered little refuge. Years later, Angel-Ajani dove into the archives, searching for an explanation for her family’s and her country’s contradictions, and for her own unshakeable anger.

What she found were records and stories of her ancestors enslaved and free, Indigenous and white, members of the KKK and Black fugitives of a justice system that was rarely just. How could so much love live alongside such hate and prejudice, within the same family? Forged by the violent systems that rewarded racial terror and segregation, Angel-Ajani’s ancestors built their lives together anyway, on the shaky foundation of love and cognitive dissonance.

Fugitive Archives reveals that we are not a country of strangers split into “us” and “them,” who merely need to get to know each other in order to empathize. We have always been deeply entangled. This story of one family’s grief, betrayal, and courage is a vital exploration of race and class, a map for survival and resistance, and a necessary reckoning—for only when we acknowledge the complex, messy truth of who we are as a country, can we shape a more just future.

Asale Angel-Ajani is the Author of A Country You Can Leave and Strange Trade. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, and other outlets. A recipient of major grants, she was a Hutchins Fellow at Harvard and holds a PhD from Stanford University. She lives in New York City.

About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.