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A profound and poetic memoir, tracing the wounds that racism and colonialism have left on Black people across borders. With astute insight and immersive prose, Bonhomme outlines a personal and political history of life in the United States, Haiti, and Germany, discovering what it means to be Black at home and abroad. She unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism and explores how communities are resisting the weight of centuries of history.
Whether examining debt, medical racism, art, or reparations,
Tending to Our Wounds cuts a breathtaking course between the past and the present, the individual and the collective-identifying the tendrils of history in the everyday and outlining a path to real freedom.
List of contents
PROLOGUE
After a diagnosis of endometriosis and fibroids, Bonhomme contemplates the geographical and activist directions her life has taken and outlines what the book will be: a personal and political history of racism across borders, and an exploration into the possibilities of racial repair.
PART I: BERLIN
Chapter 1: Ausländer
To be a Black person living in Germany, Bonhomme discovers, is to be both visible and invisible.
Chapter 2: Kulturvölker
By examining German history, Bonhomme unravels the financial ties between the Prussian Empire and the transatlantic slave trade, German colonialism in Africa, and the new Black movement in Germany.
PART II: NEW YORK CITY
Chapter 3: Student
After moving to New York City shortly before the 2008 financial crash, Bonhomme struggled to survive even as she began to discover the cultural power of Harlem as a place of refuge and a site for vice.
Chapter 4: New Yorker
Diving deeper into the history of Harlem, Bonhomme details the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and Pan-African debates during the civil rights movement, showing how this New York City neighborhood was and continues to be a haven for Black radicals.
Part III: DIASPORA
Chapter 5: Haiti
Bonhomme navigates through the complex inner workings of her parents' migration and Haitian history.
Chapter 6: Living Under Occupation
Haiti and Haitians have been punished for their freedom, and the only way forward is if France (and the United States) provide reparations to Haitians.
PART IV: THE WOUND
Chapter 7: Sibling
Bonhomme's brother's mental health illness, incarceration, and life have been shaped by growing up as a Black boy in Florida-and by the US government's inclination to invest in prisons rather than mental health institutions.
Chapter 8: Indebted
Debt perforates through our lives, affecting how we live, where we live, and how we relate to each other, and it disproportionately cripples Black women.
PART V: REPAIR
Chapter 9: Reckoning with History
Bonhomme parses the many layers of history that she has uncovered and thinks about what the future could look like.
Chapter 10: The Case for Reparations
The call for reparations is not an abstract appeal: European and North American nations must begin by paying Black people what they are owed, and an internationalist approach is part of the reparative practice.
About the author
Edna Bonhomme is a critic, historian of science, and journalist. She earned a PhD in history from Princeton University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Biology and a Master's degree in Public Health from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in
The Atlantic,
Esquire,
The Guardian,
London Review of Books, and
The Nation. She is co-editor of
After Sex, a literary anthology on abortion and reproductive justice, and the author of
A History of the World in Six Plagues. Bonhomme has earned awards from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Robert Silvers Foundation. She has lived in Berlin since 2017.
