R/evolution

Description

People are starving. Biogenetic adaptations are prevalent amongst the privileged—and the poor are being ground to a sharp and dangerous point.

These are stories of the leaders and the followers, the victims, heroes, and the everyday people caught in history's wake, chief among them Dr. Ezekiel Carter, a genius in his field who decides to offer genetic reparations to those being left behind.

In this world, what will become of the people at the fringes and more than that of humanity itself?

Why you'll love it

Thoughtful, precisely written, well-designed and powerful, Johnson's R/evolution is a book filled with likeable, admirable, 3-D characters (as well as some unpleasant ones). It's about the future struggle for Black emancipation, but while it plainly acknowledges the basic right of that desire, it draws attention to the flaws of extreme thinking, the quandaries that must be considered or else the cause be willfully misunderstood (and even when they are considered, it still is), and underscores how easily equality is ripped away from-or never even truly within the grasp-of those who have always been systematically and systemically oppressed. It's about classism and racism, systemised and individual. I loved it and I'm hungry for the next part, Evolution. If you want books that are truly meaningful, this one's for you.

Reviews

Book Review: R/evolution by Tenea D. Johnson

Thoughtful, precisely written, well-designed and powerful, Johnson's R/evolution is an epic in a nutshell, a Tardis in a book.

Tenea D. Johnson, R/evolution: A Mosaic Novel. Counterpoise, 2011

The scope of this series of interconnected tales is nothing short of epic. A stylishly presented larger tale covering the state of the USA as it turns upon a near-future of decreasing resources and heavy social unrest. Thematically, this is not a frivolous book; it is politically driven with strong views on racial and social discrimination…

About Tenea D. Johnson

Tenea was born in Kentucky. She took with her, the calm of the Ohio River and the swell of honesty (sometimes refreshing, sometimes catastrophic) that afflicts the folks born along its banks. Adoring of ideas, she graduated from the New College of Florida (enrol there now and thank her later) and NYU's Gallatin School, as well as attending Clarion. Writing sustains her; music saves her. As often as possible, she straddles their borders to create compositions/fusions/hyphenated watchamacallit better heard than described.

So far the Knitting Factory, Dixon Place, The Public Theater, and others have opened their doors to the form.

Her work has appeared in Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism, African Voices, Arise, Humanities in the South, Infinite Matrix, Contemporary American Women Poets, Shades of Blue and Gray, Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III and Necrologue, among others. She is the author of a poetry/short prose collection, Starting Friction as well as the novels, Smoketown and R/evolution. Smoketown won the 2011 Carl Brandon Parallax Award; R/evolution also received an honorable mention.

Author page

Find Tenea D. Johnson

• Website
• @TeneaJohnson