Ancestors

Noted novelists, poets, and essayists, including Samuel R. Delany, Min Jin Lee, Joy Harjo, and Zadie Smith, consider how we are shaped by the past.

It is rare now for people to stay where they were raised, and when we encounter one another—whether in person or online—it is usually in contexts that obscure if not outright hide details about our past. But even in moments of pure self-invention, we are always shaped by the past. In Ancestors, some of today's most imaginative writers—including science fiction master Samuel R. Delany, U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and novelist Zadie Smith—consider what it means to be made and fashioned by others.