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Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men

Edited by Essex Hemphill
Conceived by Joseph Beam
New Introduction by Jafari Sinclaire Allen, Ph.D.
Afterword by Chuck Tarver

Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men, begun by Joseph Beam and completed by Essex Hemphill after Beam's death in 1988, is a collection of now-classic literary work by black gay male writers. Originally published in 1991 and out of print for several years, Brother to Brother “is a community of voices,” Hemphill writes. “[It] tells a story that laughs and cries and sings and celebrates...it’s a conversation intimate friends share for hours. These are truly words mined syllable by syllable from the hearts of black gay men. You’re invited to listen in because you’re family, and these aren’t secrets—not to us, so why should they be secrets to you? Just listen. Your brother is speaking.” This new edition includes an introduction by Dr. Jafari Sinclaire Allen.

ISBN-10: 0-9786251-1-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-9786251-1-5
Specs: Softcover, 389 pp.
Price: $17.00
Pub. Date: October 2007
Cover design: E.M. Corbin

Contributors

  • Joseph Beam
  • Carlyle R. Black
  • Rory Buchanan
  • Walter Rico Burrell
  • Don Charles
  • Deryl K. Deese
  • Melvin Dixon
  • Guy Mark Foster
  • David Frechette
  • Charles Henry Fuller
  • Calvin Glenn
  • D. Rubin Green
  • Charles Harpe
  • Craig G. Harris
  • Essex Hemphill
  • Reginald T. Jackson
  • Cary Alan Johnson
  • Isaac Julien
  • John Keene
  • Kenneth McCreary
  • Kobena Mercer
  • Alan E. Miller
  • Charles I. Nero
  • Roger V. Pamplin, Jr.
  • Charles R.P. Pouncy
  • Robert Reid-Pharr
  • Craig A. Reynolds
  • Marlon Riggs
  • Assotto Saint
  • Ron Simmons
  • Bobby Smith
  • Adrian Stanford
  • Lamont B. Steptoe
  • Vega
  • Donald Woods

Praise for Brother to Brother :

These [In the Life and Brother to Brother] are timely reissues of two groundbreaking anthologies from 1986 and 1991, respectively. RedBone Press has done an excellent job of each, updating contributors’ biographies and adding new introductions. …RedBone [has] produced books which are both more attractive and reader-friendly than the Alyson originals. It’s a huge commercial leap of faith to reprint these titles… Still, with a wide and attractive further list—including implicit successor volumes to these, such as G. Winston James and Other Countries’ Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing and G. Winston James and Lisa C. Moore’s Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity—RedBone is to be praised not only for disinterring these important titles, but for building on them so tangibly in furthering the presence of important and influential black gay writing in all genres.

—Richard Canning, Chroma: A Queer Journal, March 2009

A joy and a wonder, this collection pulses with the gasp and glory of humanity by its adherence to the specifics of black gay reality. Those who know Joe Beam’s earlier collection, In the Life, can only applaud the job Essex Hemphill has done in this second collection, Brother to Brother. (Those who don’t will certainly be inspired to seek it out.) Here are pages that touch on sorrow but, even more, soar in celebration: They’re a door to step through and be dazzled by the breadth and richness of black gay lives.

—Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren and Dark Reflections