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The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin
Acclaimed poet Hafizah Augustus Geter reclaims her origin story in this “lyrical memoir” ( The New Yorker )—combining biting criticism and haunting visuals.
“Hafizah Augustus Geter is a genuine artist, not bound by genre or form. Her only loyalty is the harrowing beauty of the truth.”—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
Winner of the PEN Open Book Award • Winner of the Lambda Literary Award • A New Yorker Best Book of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year • A Brittle Paper Notable African Book of the Year • Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize
“I say, ‘the Black Period,’ and mean ‘home’ in all its shapeshifting ways.” A book of great hope, Hafizah Augustus Geter’s The Black Period creates a map for how to a country, a closet, a mother’s death, and the terror of becoming who we are in a world not built to accommodate diverse identities.
At nineteen, she suddenly lost her mother to a stroke. Weeks later, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass. Amid the crumbling of her world, Hafizah struggled to know how to mourn a Muslim woman in a freshly post-9/11 America. Weaving through a childhood populated with southern and Nigerian relatives, her days in a small Catholic school, and learning to accept her own sexuality, and in the face of a chronic pain disability that sends her pinballing through the grind that is the American Dream, Hafizah discovers that grief is a political condition. In confronting the many layers of existence that the world tries to deny, it becomes clear that in order to emerge from erasure, she must map out her own narrative.
Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought—alongside stunning original artwork created by her father, renowned artist Tyrone Geter—Hafizah leans into her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish.
As exquisitely told as it is innovative, and with a lyricism that dazzles, The Black Period is a reminder that joy and tenderness require courage, too.
“Hafizah Augustus Geter is a genuine artist, not bound by genre or form. Her only loyalty is the harrowing beauty of the truth.”—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
Winner of the PEN Open Book Award • Winner of the Lambda Literary Award • A New Yorker Best Book of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year • A Brittle Paper Notable African Book of the Year • Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize
“I say, ‘the Black Period,’ and mean ‘home’ in all its shapeshifting ways.” A book of great hope, Hafizah Augustus Geter’s The Black Period creates a map for how to a country, a closet, a mother’s death, and the terror of becoming who we are in a world not built to accommodate diverse identities.
At nineteen, she suddenly lost her mother to a stroke. Weeks later, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass. Amid the crumbling of her world, Hafizah struggled to know how to mourn a Muslim woman in a freshly post-9/11 America. Weaving through a childhood populated with southern and Nigerian relatives, her days in a small Catholic school, and learning to accept her own sexuality, and in the face of a chronic pain disability that sends her pinballing through the grind that is the American Dream, Hafizah discovers that grief is a political condition. In confronting the many layers of existence that the world tries to deny, it becomes clear that in order to emerge from erasure, she must map out her own narrative.
Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought—alongside stunning original artwork created by her father, renowned artist Tyrone Geter—Hafizah leans into her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish.
As exquisitely told as it is innovative, and with a lyricism that dazzles, The Black Period is a reminder that joy and tenderness require courage, too.
448 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2022
37 people are currently reading
7745 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
April 18, 2022
Lyrical and wide-ranging, Geter does a remarkable job of crafting a memoir that is both intensely intimate and tackles our greatest moral crises with rigor and care. From racial inequality in every aspect of her life - work, healthcare, the fates of her family, the queer community - to climate change to the value of art and empathy, Geter leaves no stone unturned in this incisive work. The portraits of her family, and their movements across Africa and America, are especially moving and memorable. Throughout, her precision and beauty of language tempers the sometimes overwhelming amount of research - and grief - in this book. Truly essential reading.
December 1, 2023
Geter is a poet, and you absolutely tell in this memoir. There are so many shining lines—"Safer to be accepted than loved, I thought."—even when describing seemingly inconsequential details, like, "Even though she laughed constantly, it was like every laugh took her by surprise."
The Black Period doesn't fit neatly into the memoir category: it's also a history book, and a collection of essays about art criticism and Afrofuturist thought, and it's also about the connected struggles of Indigenous and Black people in the United States. Oh, and it includes original artwork from her father, a well-respected artist in his own right.
I can't believe this book, which has won multiple awards and made several "best of" lists, is still so underread, even now that it's available in paperback. This would be a fascinating book to read in a group, or to study in a class. I need you all to go out and read it so we can talk about it together. It's one I can't stop thinking about.
Full review up at the Lesbrary on December 4th.
The Black Period doesn't fit neatly into the memoir category: it's also a history book, and a collection of essays about art criticism and Afrofuturist thought, and it's also about the connected struggles of Indigenous and Black people in the United States. Oh, and it includes original artwork from her father, a well-respected artist in his own right.
I can't believe this book, which has won multiple awards and made several "best of" lists, is still so underread, even now that it's available in paperback. This would be a fascinating book to read in a group, or to study in a class. I need you all to go out and read it so we can talk about it together. It's one I can't stop thinking about.
Full review up at the Lesbrary on December 4th.
March 14, 2023
full scope writing here! its reflective, (re)memory, poetry, and art! On the lookout for Geter poetry now.
October 12, 2022
Shattering and brilliant.
This book is memoir and exploration, love and family, accusation and forgiveness. I was so taken with the structure, how Geter builds her own story from a broken place while dismantling at the same time so many of the false and misleading narratives, the white institutions, the pervasiveness of white America, that led her to this idea of The Black Period. The visuals of canyon and lacuna, the gaps and spaces, stayed at the forefront for me. In the middle of the book two sections "This Can Still Happen Anywhere" and "Weighing of the Hearts" brought me to tears. Only in the hands of a gifted storyteller can truths so devastating be rendered so passionately and lyrically. I'll not soon forget the image that grief leaves a fingerprint, that a sideways guillotine skips the neck and hits the knees. But then we are given this beautiful relief.
"Where I am, the bees are black. I've seen a green dress go blue from wading, have watched the jackal's howl grind against the wind. I've kept you in the pocket like a list, unable to check anything off. There are poplar trees. Fall sunlight falling in mortars. The way, despite a pandemic, children's laughter refuses to leave any of us alone. Their joy is a guillotine at the neck of my melancholy."
A page later: "I said my own name, and Yaya, there was joy!"
The accompanying artwork by the author's father provides a kind of depth and backdrop, a way to read between the lines. Highly, highly recommend The Black Period for any reader ready to take the dive, to submerge and reemerge.
This book is memoir and exploration, love and family, accusation and forgiveness. I was so taken with the structure, how Geter builds her own story from a broken place while dismantling at the same time so many of the false and misleading narratives, the white institutions, the pervasiveness of white America, that led her to this idea of The Black Period. The visuals of canyon and lacuna, the gaps and spaces, stayed at the forefront for me. In the middle of the book two sections "This Can Still Happen Anywhere" and "Weighing of the Hearts" brought me to tears. Only in the hands of a gifted storyteller can truths so devastating be rendered so passionately and lyrically. I'll not soon forget the image that grief leaves a fingerprint, that a sideways guillotine skips the neck and hits the knees. But then we are given this beautiful relief.
"Where I am, the bees are black. I've seen a green dress go blue from wading, have watched the jackal's howl grind against the wind. I've kept you in the pocket like a list, unable to check anything off. There are poplar trees. Fall sunlight falling in mortars. The way, despite a pandemic, children's laughter refuses to leave any of us alone. Their joy is a guillotine at the neck of my melancholy."
A page later: "I said my own name, and Yaya, there was joy!"
The accompanying artwork by the author's father provides a kind of depth and backdrop, a way to read between the lines. Highly, highly recommend The Black Period for any reader ready to take the dive, to submerge and reemerge.
April 23, 2023
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This memoir was beautifully written and makes a definite impression that will stay with the reader. I highly recommend it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 22, 2023
A great book! The poetic African-American queer voice of Hafizah Augustus Geter is as complex and nonlinear as life. I appreciated the understatement of her queerness because that’s how she must live and the clear ancestral African side. The addition of 65 of her father’s paintings and charcoal drawings are really amazing to have. I am so glad I have the hardback of The Black Period so i can enjoy the illustrations with two series of color inserts. Really beautiful. I loved the mixture of prose poetry toward the end. I also loved her book of poetry Un-American. She is fearless in both books and I love that about her. It’s about the struggle against erasure. “Yaya, I married a white woman. Do you understand the sentence? Both the grammar and the living of it.” Thank you Hafizah.
October 16, 2022
A piece of beautiful art. Not only is this a deeply personal memoir but it's also a wake up call to anyone unfamiliar with the deep rooted racism that exists in the US and elsewhere. I found myself re-reading parts often because the weight of her words sunk so deeply that I had to process and make sense of them, only to find even more beauty beneath the surface. Deeply moving, this is one of the best books I've read in a while.
October 21, 2022
A window opened.
October 2, 2025
I LOVED this. Similar to reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, this book felt like as much a study as a story.
30000 quotes I could pull- but:
“If my mother knew I’d be all right, did she know how long it would take me to get here?”
30000 quotes I could pull- but:
“If my mother knew I’d be all right, did she know how long it would take me to get here?”
September 30, 2022
What a wonderful book, recommend to everyone who loves memoirs
September 15, 2022
This was an absolutely poetic book, the narration was filled with beautiful, grief-filled words that captivated me from the get-go. Hafizah Geter’s memoir is lyrical and haunting, but her voice demands to be heard. Every word was essential to be read and I found myself lingering on each page to make sure I absorbed everything. Geter’s memoir is an important one to read, it tackles grief, trauma, Islamophobia, and, racism in such a personal manner — reminding us how truly personal those things are at heart.
Hafizah Geter’s novel is not one to be missed. It’s on sale September 20th, 2022.
Hafizah Geter’s novel is not one to be missed. It’s on sale September 20th, 2022.
August 21, 2022
Reading this felt like poetry to me. I enjoyed it and the cover is simply beautiful. A deeply personal memoir that reads fairly quickly. I find it very difficult to "criticize" someone's memoir as it's their personal story. However, this memoir kept me entertained and engrossed.
October 3, 2022
Beautifully written if a little hard to follow on audiobook. Combines poetry and prose in a lovely memoire. I looked up her fathers art and there are some really beautiful pieces, including the cover of the book.
November 16, 2022
A very poignant and thoughtful book reflecting on what it means to live in the U.S. as a sharply political minority. I highly recommend, a beautiful mixture of interesting essays, poems, and artwork. One of the most interesting memoirs I've read in a while.
October 29, 2022
Shattering and not easy to read because of the style of writing. The author’s father provided the extraordinary illustrations,4.4
January 20, 2023
This is another one of the books that I'm catching up on from last year, and I'm starting to see this on shelves at the local bookstores under their "bookseller recommended" shelves, and let me tell you, they're right. This is a gorgeously written memoir that marries geology, art, her experience of being Black, raised Muslim, coming into her queerness, navigating generational divides, and finding herself and community through protests against racial injustice. Definitely worth picking up.
April 25, 2023
Had to put down for a while. Overall good read but there were times when I felt the memoir was a little all over the place.
December 27, 2022
Beautiful memoir with gorgeous pictures. Geter uses such beautiful and in depth language to talk about her life experiences, her family, and her place in the world.
September 22, 2022
The Black Period is an extraordinary achievement in memoir, blending deeply personal reflections on love, loss, family, anger, belonging, and art, with cultural reflection and insights on all of the above--all written in a gorgeous, poetic prose. This book is extraordinarily ambitious and it succeeds in each of its ambitions, leaving this reader (and I'm sure many others) emotionally gutted and uplifted at the same time.
December 19, 2022
I am in awe of this book. It's beautifully and expertly woven, part memoir while weaving in historical context and musings. How does 1 book make me think about EVERYTHING and somehow retain a focused perspective?! This book is art.
Personal bias: the author and I are the same age which influenced my reading. 1. I was enthralled by an experience so different than my own and 2. Absolutely blown away at how thorough and comprehensive this was. I could be 200 years old and still not have gained half the perspective that was in this book.
Personal bias: the author and I are the same age which influenced my reading. 1. I was enthralled by an experience so different than my own and 2. Absolutely blown away at how thorough and comprehensive this was. I could be 200 years old and still not have gained half the perspective that was in this book.
November 18, 2022
DNF. Too preachy.
February 19, 2023
In The Black Period, the author creates a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness as she celebrates the many layers of her existence that America has time and again sought to erase.
Part memoir, part history lesson and part rant, this book rambles and meanders. In one paragraph, readers learn about the current plight of a Native American tribe at the base of the Grand Canyon. In the next paragraph, we read a story about the author's family years ago. I found this bouncy timeline strategy confusing, disjointed and jarring. I couldn't quite accept it or enjoy it and found myself skimming parts of the book because the flow was so difficult to read.
Also, the author is quite against America and white folks. She posits that forgiveness and reconciliation look different for Black and white folks. Maybe. But I'm shocked that her romantic partner is white because her hatred for whites shines through loud and clear on the pages.
And in multiple places, she emphasizes that the children in the Grand Canyon school are not given adequate academic, behavioral or mental health resources and summarizes that this reality occurs because the school is located in a minority community. Unfortunately, this reality occurs in schools across the country regardless of race, gender or location.
I do really appreciate the thoughtful connections between current and past events. Indeed, many of the racial tensions and challenges our country faces today can be traced to slavery and before. One example is the trauma her aunt experienced at the hands of adult men. The aunt then acted out that trauma by abusing the author and preventing her from enjoying a loving relationship with an uncle. However, white folks are not the only perpetrators. Every adult must take responsibility for their actions and seek healing.
In my opinion, this book does not help folks seek reconciliation or understanding. Instead, it promotes hate.
The 70+ original artworks created by the author's father add visual appeal to this book.
Part memoir, part history lesson and part rant, this book rambles and meanders. In one paragraph, readers learn about the current plight of a Native American tribe at the base of the Grand Canyon. In the next paragraph, we read a story about the author's family years ago. I found this bouncy timeline strategy confusing, disjointed and jarring. I couldn't quite accept it or enjoy it and found myself skimming parts of the book because the flow was so difficult to read.
Also, the author is quite against America and white folks. She posits that forgiveness and reconciliation look different for Black and white folks. Maybe. But I'm shocked that her romantic partner is white because her hatred for whites shines through loud and clear on the pages.
And in multiple places, she emphasizes that the children in the Grand Canyon school are not given adequate academic, behavioral or mental health resources and summarizes that this reality occurs because the school is located in a minority community. Unfortunately, this reality occurs in schools across the country regardless of race, gender or location.
I do really appreciate the thoughtful connections between current and past events. Indeed, many of the racial tensions and challenges our country faces today can be traced to slavery and before. One example is the trauma her aunt experienced at the hands of adult men. The aunt then acted out that trauma by abusing the author and preventing her from enjoying a loving relationship with an uncle. However, white folks are not the only perpetrators. Every adult must take responsibility for their actions and seek healing.
In my opinion, this book does not help folks seek reconciliation or understanding. Instead, it promotes hate.
The 70+ original artworks created by the author's father add visual appeal to this book.
January 26, 2024
Wow. It's hard to find the words to describe this book, but it's extremely powerful. It's creative nonfiction, it's poetry, it's memoir, it's art. It's the core of someone's being and it's all of history in one. I am a non-American white person who has read a lot of books on Blackness and racism in the past ten years, and this one, more than any other, has shown me what it FEELS like to be Black in the USA (also, how it feels to be queer/disabled/immigrant/nonchristian - but those are all explored within the context of Blackness). It took me a fairly long time to read because I was trying to really take in all the language (very poetic and evocative) but also because the immense weight of oppression was conveyed....viscerally. There are no graphic horrors in the book - it is not trauma porn by any means - it's just, like...like if a whole person were transformed into prose. It's a very intimate book. I am honestly in awe of Geter's courage to examine herself and her own life so closely and to share it with the world. This would be a good book if any introspective person wrote it, but the fact that it's woven into this examination of society, racism, and history makes it great.
I also want to specifically applaud the care and solidarity Geter shows towards indigenous peoples, whose traumas are so unique but whose life experiences are so similar to those of other oppressed groups. She not only acknowledges their struggles, she actively explores them and how they're connected to the Black struggle (no surprise, by the tyranny of white supremacy). It inspires some hope that solidarity between all anti-racist causes will grow and be stronger together. There's a weird sort of hope and joy mingled with the pain and alienation. A complex worldview.
I also want to specifically applaud the care and solidarity Geter shows towards indigenous peoples, whose traumas are so unique but whose life experiences are so similar to those of other oppressed groups. She not only acknowledges their struggles, she actively explores them and how they're connected to the Black struggle (no surprise, by the tyranny of white supremacy). It inspires some hope that solidarity between all anti-racist causes will grow and be stronger together. There's a weird sort of hope and joy mingled with the pain and alienation. A complex worldview.
Read
February 23, 2024“we are pain in the roots system” (part I, age IV).
beautifully lyrical and poetic in a way that completely floors you; alliterative, analytical, awe inspiring. geter’s memoir reflects on the spirit of her late mother and the generations that came before, overseeing geter’s journey through the world and its associated injustice, as she holds the image of colonial violence and its impact on today’s communities up to the viewer to confront and absorb. chronic pain and illnesses from generational trauma, holding onto culture amidst diaspora, solidarity between communities that white america has tried to pit against each other, geter asserts the importance of community in healing the wounds of imperialist violence, even as one contends with the hurt done unto us by other hurt people. the work overall is firm in its assertion of joy as a means for revolutionary change, of the beauty and complexity of peoplehood, and of the strength it takes to show up with unabashed pride in holding a multitude of identities. i don’t think i fully have the words to describe everything swirling in my head after reading this; just a really really beautiful work.
beautifully lyrical and poetic in a way that completely floors you; alliterative, analytical, awe inspiring. geter’s memoir reflects on the spirit of her late mother and the generations that came before, overseeing geter’s journey through the world and its associated injustice, as she holds the image of colonial violence and its impact on today’s communities up to the viewer to confront and absorb. chronic pain and illnesses from generational trauma, holding onto culture amidst diaspora, solidarity between communities that white america has tried to pit against each other, geter asserts the importance of community in healing the wounds of imperialist violence, even as one contends with the hurt done unto us by other hurt people. the work overall is firm in its assertion of joy as a means for revolutionary change, of the beauty and complexity of peoplehood, and of the strength it takes to show up with unabashed pride in holding a multitude of identities. i don’t think i fully have the words to describe everything swirling in my head after reading this; just a really really beautiful work.
November 30, 2024
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!
Now available.
Part memoir, part historical speculation, part dreaming, The Black Period by Hafizah Augustus Geter is a beautiful exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America. Fraught with the tension of past and present racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, sexual and physical violence, domestic violence, and more, Geter tenderly traces the amorphous borders of her existence. This book will break your heart and fill you with angst and wonder. It is deeply researched and deeply felt and I feel grateful to have recieved Geter's words in this universe.
Now available.
Part memoir, part historical speculation, part dreaming, The Black Period by Hafizah Augustus Geter is a beautiful exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America. Fraught with the tension of past and present racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, sexual and physical violence, domestic violence, and more, Geter tenderly traces the amorphous borders of her existence. This book will break your heart and fill you with angst and wonder. It is deeply researched and deeply felt and I feel grateful to have recieved Geter's words in this universe.
January 21, 2024
So much poetry in her words. The complex and the simple truths. She has perspective on them all and wraps them all together in a whole package that makes things clearer than they were previously.
Lambda Literary winner in 2023 this book is much more than a memoir. I have so many pages tagged with passages to record for additional contemplation.
Highly recommend this woman’s work and voice.
Lambda Literary winner in 2023 this book is much more than a memoir. I have so many pages tagged with passages to record for additional contemplation.
Highly recommend this woman’s work and voice.
July 1, 2023
The book was beautifully written, poetic. But Geter's struggles to find her Black Period as a Black, queer, Muslim-raised woman, was emotionally hard to read about. I'm so happy that she included her father's artwork among the pages, poetic in themselves, and a beautiful tribute.
October 19, 2022
3.5. I really loved a lot of this. Some sections felt a bit too vague for me.
Want to read
November 24, 2022I got covid and still getting over so no reading yet
November 5, 2023
This was an amazing read, reflecting between the current and the past. A beautiful memoir.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews