The End of Chiraq

E-book – $20.00
ISBN 978-0-8101-3719-6Trade Paper – $20.00
ISBN 978-0-8101-3718-9The End of Chiraq
"Chiraq" has come to connote the violence—interpersonal and structural—that many Chicago youth regularly experience. But the contributors to The End of Chiraq show that Chicago is much more than Chiraq. Instead, they demonstrate how young people are thinking and mobilizing, engaged in a process of creating a new and safer world for themselves, their communities, and their city.
In true mixtape fashion, the book is an exercise in "low end theory" that does not just include so-called underground and marginal voices, but foregrounds them. Edited by award-winning poets, writers, and teachers Javon Johnson and Kevin Coval, The End of Chiraq addresses head-on the troublesome relationship between Chicago and Chiraq and envisions a future in which both might be transformed.
"This is no ordinary anthology. It’s a multigenre compilation, curated by Johnson, a professor of African American studies, and poet Coval (A People’s History of Chicago, 2017), cofounder of Chicago’s Louder Than a Bomb youth poetry festival, and it reflects the editors’ kaleidoscopic approach to literary work in one of the most diverse—and one of the most segregated—cities in the U.S. By turns academic and artistic, the collection includes interviews with community activists (like Uptown’s Elephant Rebellion), essays on Black Lives Matter and against Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, and an artists’ round-table discussion on Afrofuturism. But at its heart are poems, produced primarily through Young Chicago Authors, and they are some of the most fiery, fiercely intelligent, wickedly funny verses brought together in one place." —Booklist
"Because this book focuses on the lived experiences of Black and Brown Chicagoans, it draws on the voices, literary cues, and artist expressions that are part of their lives. As a Black Chicagoan, I was thrilled to see the rhythms and use of Chicago slang (tha’ go and Chiraq) used in this book. It captures a unique voice, which readers (especially Chicago readers) will find compelling." —Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor, Social Sciences at Arizona State University
"The End of Chiraq is a necessary and impassioned recovery of a set of histories, images, and a soul of Chicago that is often rendered absent in traditional demographic studies. This collection is hip-hop, once again, finding ways to give voice and power to young people." —Anthony S. Blacksher, Associate Publisher, San Diego Poetry Annual
"The violence regularly experienced by young Chicagoans is harnessed here to transform the potential and richness via rhythm, slang, hip-hop, scholarship, imagination, and documentation. It’s an important book encapsulating the feelings and experiences of the black community in Chicago, a city under siege. These are stunning voices in rap, story, interviews, never put together like this before... This is a powerful encyclopedia of human progress though creativity." —Grace Cavalieiri, Washington Independent Review of Books
“I want to see unconditional love and the end of Chiraq. If you feel the same way, my one 'answer' would be to read this book.” —Cody Lee, NewPages