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Tales
Praise for Amiri Baraka:
"Baraka's stories evoke a mood of revolutionary disorder, conjuring an alternative universe in which a dangerous African-American underground, or a dangerous literary underground still exists...Baraka is at his best as a lyrical prophet of despair who transfigures his contentious racial and political views into a transcendent, 'outtelligent' clarity."
-- New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) on Tales of the Out & the Gone
With a new introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
These sixteen artful and nuanced stories fall into two parts: the first nine concern themselves with the sensibility of a hip, perceptive young black man in white America. The last seven stories endeavor to place that same man within the context of his awareness of and participation in a rapidly emerging and powerfully felt negritude. They deal, it might be said, with the black man in black America. Yet these tales are not social tracts, but absolutely masterful fiction--provocative, witty, and, at times, bitter and aggressive.
"Baraka's stories evoke a mood of revolutionary disorder, conjuring an alternative universe in which a dangerous African-American underground, or a dangerous literary underground still exists...Baraka is at his best as a lyrical prophet of despair who transfigures his contentious racial and political views into a transcendent, 'outtelligent' clarity."
-- New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) on Tales of the Out & the Gone
With a new introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
These sixteen artful and nuanced stories fall into two parts: the first nine concern themselves with the sensibility of a hip, perceptive young black man in white America. The last seven stories endeavor to place that same man within the context of his awareness of and participation in a rapidly emerging and powerfully felt negritude. They deal, it might be said, with the black man in black America. Yet these tales are not social tracts, but absolutely masterful fiction--provocative, witty, and, at times, bitter and aggressive.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
33 people are currently reading
589 people want to read
About the author
Amiri Baraka
154 books395 followersPoems and plays, such as
Dutchman
(1964), of American writer Amiri Baraka originally Everett LeRoi Jones focus on racial conflict.
He attended Barringer high school. Coyt Leverette Jones, his father, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. Anna Lois Russ Jones, his mother, worked as a social worker.
He studied at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard universities but left without a degree and attended the new school for social research. He won a scholarship to Rutgers in 1951, but a continuing sense of cultural dislocation prompted him to transfer in 1952 to Howard. He studied philosophy and religion, major fields. Jones also served three years in the air force as a gunner. Jones continued his studies of comparative literature at Columbia University. An anonymous letter accused him as a Communist to his commanding officer and led to the discovery of Soviet literature; afterward, people put Jones on gardening duty and gave him a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.
In the same year, he moved to Greenwich Village and worked initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began in this period. At the same time, he came into contact with Beat Generation, black mountain college, and New York School. In 1958, he married Hettie Cohen and founded Totem Press, which published such Beat Generation icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Jones in July 1960 visited with a delegation of Cuba committee and reported his impressions in his essay Cuba libre . He began a politically active art. In 1961, he published Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note , a first book. In 1963, Blues People: Negro Music in White America of the most influential volumes of criticism, especially in regard to the then beginning free jazz movement, followed. His acclaimed controversy premiered and received an Obie Award in the same year.
After the assassination of Malcolm X (1965), Jones left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem. His controversial revolutionary and then antisemitic.
In 1966, Jones married Sylvia Robinson, his second wife, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. In 1967, he lectured at San Francisco State University. In 1967, he adopted the African name Imamu Amear Baraka, which he later changed to Amiri Baraka.
In 1968, he was arrested in Newark for allegedly carrying an illegal weapon and resisting arrest during the riots of the previous year, and people subsequently sentenced him to three years in prison; shortly afterward, Raymond A. Brown, his defense attorney, convinced an appeals court to reverse the sentence. In that same year, Black Music, his second book of jazz criticism, collected previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka penned some similar strongly anti-Jewish articles to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam to court controversy.
Around 1974, Baraka himself from Black nationalism as a Marxist and a supporter of third-world liberation movements. In 1979, he lectured at Africana studies department of State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1980, he denounced his former anti-Semitic utterances, declaring himself an anti-Zionist.
In 1984, Baraka served as a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure. In 1989, he won a book award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes award.
In 1990, he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 , he served as supporting actor in Bulworth, film of Warren Beatty. In 1996, the red hot organization produced Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip, and Baraka contributed to this acquired immune def
He attended Barringer high school. Coyt Leverette Jones, his father, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. Anna Lois Russ Jones, his mother, worked as a social worker.
He studied at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard universities but left without a degree and attended the new school for social research. He won a scholarship to Rutgers in 1951, but a continuing sense of cultural dislocation prompted him to transfer in 1952 to Howard. He studied philosophy and religion, major fields. Jones also served three years in the air force as a gunner. Jones continued his studies of comparative literature at Columbia University. An anonymous letter accused him as a Communist to his commanding officer and led to the discovery of Soviet literature; afterward, people put Jones on gardening duty and gave him a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.
In the same year, he moved to Greenwich Village and worked initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began in this period. At the same time, he came into contact with Beat Generation, black mountain college, and New York School. In 1958, he married Hettie Cohen and founded Totem Press, which published such Beat Generation icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Jones in July 1960 visited with a delegation of Cuba committee and reported his impressions in his essay Cuba libre . He began a politically active art. In 1961, he published Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note , a first book. In 1963, Blues People: Negro Music in White America of the most influential volumes of criticism, especially in regard to the then beginning free jazz movement, followed. His acclaimed controversy premiered and received an Obie Award in the same year.
After the assassination of Malcolm X (1965), Jones left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem. His controversial revolutionary and then antisemitic.
In 1966, Jones married Sylvia Robinson, his second wife, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. In 1967, he lectured at San Francisco State University. In 1967, he adopted the African name Imamu Amear Baraka, which he later changed to Amiri Baraka.
In 1968, he was arrested in Newark for allegedly carrying an illegal weapon and resisting arrest during the riots of the previous year, and people subsequently sentenced him to three years in prison; shortly afterward, Raymond A. Brown, his defense attorney, convinced an appeals court to reverse the sentence. In that same year, Black Music, his second book of jazz criticism, collected previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka penned some similar strongly anti-Jewish articles to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam to court controversy.
Around 1974, Baraka himself from Black nationalism as a Marxist and a supporter of third-world liberation movements. In 1979, he lectured at Africana studies department of State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1980, he denounced his former anti-Semitic utterances, declaring himself an anti-Zionist.
In 1984, Baraka served as a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure. In 1989, he won a book award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes award.
In 1990, he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 , he served as supporting actor in Bulworth, film of Warren Beatty. In 1996, the red hot organization produced Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip, and Baraka contributed to this acquired immune def
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
January 7, 2018
Two quick things:
1. There is some really fantastic writing here - the prose borders on just the right side of the surreal to remain powerfully political - it is well worth checking out.
2. It seems to me from a brief initial check that Akashic Books' "classics" series belongs on that list of independent presses one keeps one's eyes and ears open for. The press in general seems to have far too much hipster or ex-famous-band-member literary efforts for my taste, but this particular series looks to have real promise.
1. There is some really fantastic writing here - the prose borders on just the right side of the surreal to remain powerfully political - it is well worth checking out.
2. It seems to me from a brief initial check that Akashic Books' "classics" series belongs on that list of independent presses one keeps one's eyes and ears open for. The press in general seems to have far too much hipster or ex-famous-band-member literary efforts for my taste, but this particular series looks to have real promise.
August 17, 2017
I received a free copy of this book, and am grateful. This collection of stories was first published in 1967, nearly 50 years ago. They were all (or nearly all) written before LeRoi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka, while he was still working out his identity as a black artist. Many of these stories I found nearly incomprehensible, as they are written in a Joycean stream-of-conciousness style. I also had trouble telling when Jones is writing with a character's voice distinct from his own, versus using the character as a mouthpiece to say exactly what Jones thinks. Related to that, I've found it hard to distinguish facetious humor from extreme views meant to be taken completely seriously. A couple stories that I did understand, and liked, included 'Heroes Are Gang Leaders', and a Black Power science fiction fantasy, 'Answers in Progress.' But for most of the stories, a good critical guide - not part of this edition - could go a long way to making them more accessible. One final note: the casual anti-gay bigotry throughout the stories is annoying. It says a lot about the way living as the target of racism can mess with a man's identity, prompting him to double down on rigid tropes of (straight) masculinity. But in these stories, it feels baked into Jones' worldview, rather than present as an artistic choice, and it's wearing.
June 2, 2018
2 of many favorite passages:
-Bums have the same qualifications as any of us to run for president, and it is the measure of a society that they refuse to. And this is not romanticism, but simple cultural observation. Bums know at least as much about the world as Senator Fulbright. You better believe it.
-Poets climb, briefly, off their motorcycles, to find out who owns their words. We are named by all the things we will never understand. Whether we can fight or not, or even at the moment of our hugest triumph we stare off into space remembering the snow melting in our cuts, and all the pimps of reason who've ever conquered us. It is the harshest form of love.
-Bums have the same qualifications as any of us to run for president, and it is the measure of a society that they refuse to. And this is not romanticism, but simple cultural observation. Bums know at least as much about the world as Senator Fulbright. You better believe it.
-Poets climb, briefly, off their motorcycles, to find out who owns their words. We are named by all the things we will never understand. Whether we can fight or not, or even at the moment of our hugest triumph we stare off into space remembering the snow melting in our cuts, and all the pimps of reason who've ever conquered us. It is the harshest form of love.
April 21, 2009
More prose poetry than prose.
And the prose that's here is spotty: occasionally brilliant but intermittently dull and/or unreadably complex and wordplayful.
The prose poetry occasionally seems slapdash non-sense. Which I guess would be fine- I like nonsense- but it can get tiring. Though I concede that I may be missing shining depths of intention due to my unhipness or whiteness or non-stonedness or unwillingness to reread each paragraph more than twice at a time in order to get what's there. Certainly there were a couple puns here and there that I nearly missed, and then thought were clever once I caught them. (Is that all I hoped for though? Puns? No).
The more grounded stuff gets into interesting inner-politics stuff that I've never really seen the like of anywhere else, and the more tripped out bits still have moments of frightening clarity that do wonderful things. But occasionally I can't help but feel that the playful uses of language obscure too much meaning. There are a good half-dozen pages that, once read, disappeared forever into the garbage can of my mind, without a coherent sentence or even much of a memorable phrase in them.
Then whenever I'd be ready to give up, I'd find something worth continuing for. The last several bits especially are hilarious and daring and completely beyond smartass, all the way to smart.
Perhaps it says something about me that my favorite part is the introduction, which promises more than what follows it seems to deliver, and is savage and sly and wonderful.
No one but Mr. Baraka, of course, has the right to sign off "The Last Poet Laureate of New Jersey". He is a brilliant dude and I for one will read any book he writes.
Though I may stick to his poetry for a while.
And the prose that's here is spotty: occasionally brilliant but intermittently dull and/or unreadably complex and wordplayful.
The prose poetry occasionally seems slapdash non-sense. Which I guess would be fine- I like nonsense- but it can get tiring. Though I concede that I may be missing shining depths of intention due to my unhipness or whiteness or non-stonedness or unwillingness to reread each paragraph more than twice at a time in order to get what's there. Certainly there were a couple puns here and there that I nearly missed, and then thought were clever once I caught them. (Is that all I hoped for though? Puns? No).
The more grounded stuff gets into interesting inner-politics stuff that I've never really seen the like of anywhere else, and the more tripped out bits still have moments of frightening clarity that do wonderful things. But occasionally I can't help but feel that the playful uses of language obscure too much meaning. There are a good half-dozen pages that, once read, disappeared forever into the garbage can of my mind, without a coherent sentence or even much of a memorable phrase in them.
Then whenever I'd be ready to give up, I'd find something worth continuing for. The last several bits especially are hilarious and daring and completely beyond smartass, all the way to smart.
Perhaps it says something about me that my favorite part is the introduction, which promises more than what follows it seems to deliver, and is savage and sly and wonderful.
No one but Mr. Baraka, of course, has the right to sign off "The Last Poet Laureate of New Jersey". He is a brilliant dude and I for one will read any book he writes.
Though I may stick to his poetry for a while.
July 2, 2009
Amiri is on some shit I cant get with.
February 22, 2025
"They wanted to be angry. Your mother frowned and murmured Christia like it was something she knew about knew, in fact, a christ-jew a beatnik in sandals with a psychedelic twitch. He seed stuff."
This is an average example of the gibberish paragraphs you will find in this book. I like Baraka's plays but he is clearly not a talented author of short stories. Even when the stories do make sense, they all seem rather pointless.
This is an average example of the gibberish paragraphs you will find in this book. I like Baraka's plays but he is clearly not a talented author of short stories. Even when the stories do make sense, they all seem rather pointless.
December 5, 2007
I ultimately gave up on this about 3/4 of the way through. I did like a lot of what I had read, but it got very abstract toward the end. I particularly like the story Neo American.
If you want to read, in a narrative style, about the rise of a black Democratic party power movement in the '70s, this is the book for you.
If you want to read, in a narrative style, about the rise of a black Democratic party power movement in the '70s, this is the book for you.
September 4, 2008
Much could be said about this...I will just remark that I am delighted by Baraka's distinction between intelligence and outtelligence, and that I was very happily surprised to find here a story, "Norman's Date," whose protagonist is my dear, dearly missed friend Norman Bluhm. I can't say he captures Norman's irreplaceable voice, but something of his ectoplasm is in the tale nonetheless.
November 11, 2021
This collection was a quick read. I may have to re-read it some day because there were some that I simply had trouble following but the ones I could follow were masterful in voice and dialogue. There we so many quotables in this book and points the made me look within/without. He has a great ability to make you feel you know the place, people and feeling. That is a gift.
Want to read
January 18, 2014Hearing Baraka reading his "Rhythm Travels" is enough to entice me to seek more, to try to understand, insofar as possible.
October 12, 2009
what a disturbing series of short stories!
June 28, 2015
Amiri Baraka was more than a poet. He writes in a variety styles, but they all focus on the state of being Black in America and universally. Another great one. He is missed.
April 25, 2023
A good chunk of this is genuinely unreadable. The stories that do make some sense are excellent but they are few and far between. I suspect this was in Amiri’s beatnik era…
“Bourgeois poets yodel nonsense
about boring absence.
They think of funny ways for letters
to sit on the page.
Concrete bullshit,
‘arty’ dumb shit…”
(Against Bourgeois Art, Amiri Baraka)
“Bourgeois poets yodel nonsense
about boring absence.
They think of funny ways for letters
to sit on the page.
Concrete bullshit,
‘arty’ dumb shit…”
(Against Bourgeois Art, Amiri Baraka)
September 9, 2025
Entries within range from more traditional short stories , some essays, and full on surrealist prose-poetry
Some of the short stories fall a little bland but Baraka’s puzzle-like use of language is always always mesmerizing.
3.5 rounded down because a lot of the war stories half was forgettable and his poetry and playwriting is generally better than the stories collected here. Still a fun read
Some of the short stories fall a little bland but Baraka’s puzzle-like use of language is always always mesmerizing.
3.5 rounded down because a lot of the war stories half was forgettable and his poetry and playwriting is generally better than the stories collected here. Still a fun read
March 29, 2019
Super abstract which I loved. Not always 100% sure what was happening but the stories were each compelling and it was hard to put down. Felt very friendly in a way.
July 17, 2022
A generally boring book
March 29, 2016
This re-issue of Tales by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) is ideally suited for (and will hopefully be used in) literature courses as well as Black Studies/African-American Studies courses. Originally published in 1967 this collection captures an important transitional period in Baraka's writing. While he had always addressed the issue of being Black in America he was moving from doing so in a traditional voice, often considered a non-threatening voice to a largely white academic and literary audience. As he developed a voice that was not only more his own but also better able to speak to other Blacks he became perceived as far more threatening.
The tales here are not light breezy reads, but neither are indecipherable. They do require an intention to understand what they may be saying or implying. As is well known and probably doesn't require repeating, his voice became infused with a jazz/rhythm & blues flow. Like good poetry (and he was a very good poet) the ears are an important element in understanding and appreciating his stories. These do reward the reader for an oral enactment of the tales. I do think that these tales are more effective because they are not so simple. When we are forced to slow our reading and think about what we read it helps us to test different perspectives and possibilities, which can only serve to enrich any reading.
In addition to students (whether formal or informal) of literature, the Black Arts Movement and the intersections of literature, music, culture and politics I think this would also benefit writers who might want to experience different ways of infusing their writing with movement, meaning and rhythm. While I consider this a 5 star classic I am giving it 4 (4.5) stars because many readers will find these to be too far removed from a standard short story with a very clear progression. Additionally, I think an interested reader should try to read (or re-read) more of Baraka's work to better contextualize this work.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing.
The tales here are not light breezy reads, but neither are indecipherable. They do require an intention to understand what they may be saying or implying. As is well known and probably doesn't require repeating, his voice became infused with a jazz/rhythm & blues flow. Like good poetry (and he was a very good poet) the ears are an important element in understanding and appreciating his stories. These do reward the reader for an oral enactment of the tales. I do think that these tales are more effective because they are not so simple. When we are forced to slow our reading and think about what we read it helps us to test different perspectives and possibilities, which can only serve to enrich any reading.
In addition to students (whether formal or informal) of literature, the Black Arts Movement and the intersections of literature, music, culture and politics I think this would also benefit writers who might want to experience different ways of infusing their writing with movement, meaning and rhythm. While I consider this a 5 star classic I am giving it 4 (4.5) stars because many readers will find these to be too far removed from a standard short story with a very clear progression. Additionally, I think an interested reader should try to read (or re-read) more of Baraka's work to better contextualize this work.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing.
July 2, 2016
I received this as a Goodreads giveaway book.
I found this book (originally written back in the mid-1960s) an interesting yet challenging read.
I don't mind "challenging" reads, but I do tend to like stories that progress from beginning to middle to end, with a flow that makes sense to my mind.
The stories in this book didn't always do that for me. The blurb on the back of the book calls the stories "impressionistic" and "surrealistic". I find them to also be something of "stream of consciousness" tales, too. Which makes them a bit hard to follow.
That being said, I did find them to be worth reading, and would recommend the book to anyone who would like to look at the world through different eyes.
I found this book (originally written back in the mid-1960s) an interesting yet challenging read.
I don't mind "challenging" reads, but I do tend to like stories that progress from beginning to middle to end, with a flow that makes sense to my mind.
The stories in this book didn't always do that for me. The blurb on the back of the book calls the stories "impressionistic" and "surrealistic". I find them to also be something of "stream of consciousness" tales, too. Which makes them a bit hard to follow.
That being said, I did find them to be worth reading, and would recommend the book to anyone who would like to look at the world through different eyes.
January 17, 2014
The stories from the 1970's tend to be morality fables in support of the anti-revisionist communist movement. Not interesting for the most part, with a lot of flat satirical portraits of the Black bourgeoisie. I should also note that there is some minor homophobia and sexism, that reflects the era. The book then transitions into more ambiguous territory in the 1980's with a mixture of more daily life narratives and satire, and moves into more experimental writing that mixes considerable amounts of poetic form into the narrative. For the most part, those are the texts that are most interesting, and the ones that I feel that I need to reread.
May 4, 2007
I wished, while reading, that i knew a thing or two abt jazz. lot of the later work, from "tales of the out & the gone" section are improv to the point of abstraction, where i just can't follow the sense of it except to understand that there is some humor and a lot of sarcasm. the earlier stuff from war stories is just a bit too "masculine" for me to really feel. but i agree that "the short story should be a sacred form, since it's the most common way we tell our lives" p. 131 - but how long has that been true? i wonder.
November 24, 2009
I picked this up recently on remainder at Book Culture, 112th and Broadway, and was very glad I did. Like many, I suspect, I knew Baraka primarily through his intelligent writings on music. What a delightful surprise to encounter the breadth of his imagination on display in short-story format, and - in an even bigger surprise - his playful humor. Not all of these stories resonate deeply, and several end with an abruptness that is jarring, but overall I felt that the collection gave me a deeper understanding of the creative gifts of one of our culture's most complex literary minds.
Read
February 11, 2014Surreal urban scenes portrayed with bitter humor. Essentially, the first half or so is great, then Jones decided to become a black nationalist and lost his edge, at least from a literary standpoint. He may have been sick of hanging out with ofays at that point (and hey, who'd blame him) but he certainly wrote better fiction, as well as better poetry, when he was....
July 16, 2024
One of the best collections of writing ever published. Lynn hope.
December 7, 2013
A disjointed effort from LeRoi Jones whose bile and disillusionment is apparent in the stories presented in Tales. While Jones' work always comes packaged with a healthy dose of anger, there is a heightened sense of enmity in these stories that overshadow any sense of humanity or hope.
December 19, 2015
This is Leroi Jones before he found his confidence as Amiri Baraka. These are raw, exploratory stories and reflections on what it means to be black in America, testing the boundaries of the prose story to get at a great, gnawing, embarrassing discomfort of self. Great stuff.
November 28, 2015
Some interesting stuff in here but incredibly complex in places. Inventive wordplay that will confuse a lot of people. I think I got the gist of it, I think. The first half of the book 'War Stories' is pretty easy reading at least.
October 30, 2016
Good writing, just not something I'm really in to. You may like this more than I did.
August 28, 2007
"It's written in a kind of code, like double dutch, using language to outwit language" - Baraka
Read
October 17, 2008I adore Baraka's voice and having heard him read from his work in Miami last year the richness of his tone has deepened for me.
February 12, 2011
I've always appreciated the word play, rhythm, and free associations of thoughts of Amiri Baraka's poems. His style didn't translate well to prose for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews