Kaitlyn Greenidge
“One of the things that we are tasked with in the world is to figure out which language we can use to describe our realities. I think that one of the great things about being human is that we can imagine better ways for ourselves, better worlds for ourselves.”
“Kaitlyn Greenidge’s historical fiction unites the African diaspora. Libertie is a feat of monumental thematic imagination . . . Greenidge both mines history and transcends time, centering her post-Civil-War New York story around an enduring quest for freedom . . . The sheer force of Greenidge’s vision for [Libertie], for us all, gives us hope that it won’t be long now.”
“This immersive story is a soaring exploration of what ‘freedom’ truly means. Libertie is an elegantly layered, beautifully rendered tour de force that is not to be missed.”
“. . . witty and provocative . . . Greenidge deftly handles a host of complex themes and characters, exploring not just how (literally) institutionalized racism is, but the difficulty of an effective response to it . . . Greenidge doesn’t march to a pat answer; the power of the book is in her understanding of how clarity wriggles out of reach. For all the seriousness of its themes, though, Charlie Freeman is also caustically funny.”
Kaitlyn Greenidge is a novelist and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Her most recent novel, the critically acclaimed Libertie (Algonquin Books, 2021) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, who called it, “another genius work of radical historical fiction.” She is the author of the debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman (Algonquin Books, 2016), one of the New York Times Critics' Top 10 Books of 2016, which Buzzfeed called “masterful,” and Booklist praised as “wondrous.” She writes extensively on race and culture. Her essays have appeared in Vogue, Glamour, the Wall Street Journal, Elle.com, Buzzfeed, Transition Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, American Short Fiction and other places. She was also a contributing editor for LENNY Letter. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
When asked by the Los Angeles Review of Books about how language develops within families, a theme of We Love You, Charlie Freeman, she responded, “That was the inspiration for the book. I wanted to explore how families communicate with each other, and the ways they can be truthful in their communications, and then the ways that those languages that grow within families can also be dishonest and hide the truth. They can calcify people’s relationships with each other, sometimes, but can also be real sources of strength and comfort. I wanted to explore both sides of the complicated nature of that communication.”
Greenidge holds an MFA from Hunter College, and is currently at work on her second novel. She lives in Brooklyn.
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