The Portable Promised Land: Stories

(Paperback)

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This inspired collection of stories is cause for celebration. With stunning language and dazzling characters, Toure introduces Soul City -- a wholly imagined utopia where magic happens and black is beautiful. In a broad range of characterization and styles, The Portable Promised Land is filled with lighthearted humor and heavyhearted issues. Toure challenges form and what's considered politically correct in stories like The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot and Afrolexicolgy: Today's Bi-Annual List of the Top 50 Words in African America. The Portable Promised Land marks the entrance of a new and wildly compelling voice to fiction.

Reviews

"A sharp celebration of black urban life.... Toure has given life in Soul City a comic edge, revealing the humor and absurdities behind the seriousness of race. Even the author's note and acknowledgments are fun to read."
"A zesty debut.... A vital new voice in fiction. Popping with energy and edginess, THE PORTABLE PROMISED LAND is an inspired ode to the methods and madness of those who know that black isn't just a matter of race--it's a state of mind, a state of grace."
"Hip-hop culture gets both glorified and sent up, sometimes in the same sentence.... Agreeably shocking, sharply perceptive, quite funny."
"Hugely enjoyable.... An audacious and inventive debut.... The reader feels a bracing, biting gust of literary fresh air.... Buy the book."
"These delightful works practically beg to be read aloud.... Toure is a talent to watch."