Award-winning poet and novelist Sapphire has a new book - The Kid (Penguin Press HC, The July 5, 2011) I ran into Sapphire in Manhattan several months ago at the subway. This was right after the release of the film "Precious." Sapphire is the first person and writer I sought advice from regarding MFA programs when I first moved to NYC. She earned her MFA degree from
Brooklyn College and has been a terrific example of what it means to be a woman artist who is fearless. Sapphire is one of the few writers whose work affects me in such a way that her words compel me to want to go deeper in my own writing.
When we talked last fall, I congratulated her on the success of her works and the film adaptation of
Push. I was interested to know what she would turn her attention to next. A new volume of poetry? Another novel? Teaching on the college level? Just from talking with her I could tell she had alot of new opportunities before her. I read both
Black Wings & Blind Angels and
Push and have been eagerly awaiting her new work.
The Kid is the sequel to
Push.
Fifteen years after the publication of Push, one year after the Academy Award-winning film adaptation, Sapphire gives voice to Precious's son, Abdul.
In The Kid bestselling author Sapphire tells the electrifying story of Abdul Jones, the son of Push's unforgettable heroine, Precious.
A story of body and spirit, rooted in the hungers of flesh and of the soul, The Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones. We meet him at age nine, on the day of his mother's funeral. Left alone to navigate a world in which love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade, forced to confront unspeakable violence, his history, and the dark corners of his own heart, Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behind.
