“An incredible piece of history, of Black life domestically and globally, written with brilliance, panache and delicious wit. He miraculously recapture[s] the fury, the funk and the sweetness of the ’60s–and its broken dreams… and bitter betrayals… He is truly a wonderful writer!”

-Mumia Abu-Jamal, author of We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party

“Into the wake of great literature fighting human bondage, Frank Wilderson pours Incognegro. And, like the offerings of Ellison, Fanon, Baldwin and Morrison, this revolutionary love story must be widely read, generously shared, and relentlessly engaged.”

– Joy James, author of Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics

“… with an unerring eye and ear for a telling detail and image, Frank Wilderson brings a novelistic and dramatic imagination to a story of our times. It is a multi-layered narrative of a life molded in struggles for human dignity in America and Africa, at once a gripping story of race politics and a biography of his soul.”

– Ngugi wa Thiong’o, author of The Wizard of the Crow

Frank B. Wilderson, III

Frank is an award-winning writer, poet, scholar, activist and emerging filmmaker. Dr. Wilderson spent five years in South Africa as an elected official in the African National Congress during the country’s transition from apartheid and was a member of the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto We Sizwe. He also lectured at the University of Witwatersrand (a White English medium university in Johannesburg), Vista University (a Black English medium, Afrikaner-controlled university in Soweto), and Khanya College (a tertiary-level liberation school for activist youth whose studies had been “interrupted” by the revolution). Dr. Wilderson served as a Market Theater dramaturge and worked on an all-Black South African cast production of the Black American play The Colored Museum; and as an elected official in the (ANC-aligned) Congress of South African Writers.

In 'Afropessmism," a Black Intellectual Mixes Memoir and Theory

Click here to read a recent interview with Frank in the New York Times.

Discussion with Frank on Afropessimism

Click here to watch the video and read the questions and comments. 

Emphasis Mine: The Italicized Life of Frank Wilderson ’78

Click here to read an interview with Frank for Dartmouth Alumni Magazine.