Racial Fictions

by Hazel V Carby

A powerful critique of the racial myths that shape our world

Drawing on a rich tapestry of historical analysis, literary criticism, and cultural theory, Hazel V. Carby interrogates our racial fictions, which have been constructed, maintained, and weaponized across centuries to justify systems of domination and exploitation.

Traversing temporalities and global boundaries, Racial Fictions reveals the inter-connectedness of America’s domestic racial struggles and international colonial ambitions. Carby challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the persistence of white supremacy, the violence embedded in historical memory, and the silencing of marginalized voices. The result is a profound exploration of the intricate and enduring legacies of race, imperialism, and violence in the formation of modern identities and nation-states.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Maxine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racial Fictions by Hazel V Carby brings together several different essays written over several years. They provide deep and layered insights into how racial fictions have permeated and motivated racist ideology and action across centuries and borders. This is a well-written and informative read, accessible to anyone who has an interest in the subject and not only in the United States. It is also extremely timely. As the author points out, what a nation remembers matters and, given the state of the world right now, this has never been more true.

I read an eARC of the book provided by Netgalley and Verso Books while listening to the audiobook from Brilliance Publishing narrated by Nicola F. Delgado who does an amazing job with a very complex but important subject. All opinions are my own.

[Lois]

This is narrated by Nicola F. Delgado with sensitivity. This is an extremely academic look at these issues which can feel lecture like on audio. Nicola does an excellent with tone and inflection to break up the monotony of this information.

I really enjoyed this. This is a series of essays across multiple time periods and multiple issues with the theme of understanding how the fiction of race is created and maintained.

I have extensively studied the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and the resulting global racist fall out as the result of this crime against humanity. This looks across the Diaspora and ties in common themes and issues that plague us.

This is accessible to lay readers but I fear if the lay reader isn’t familiar with this subject in a very deep way this will be somewhat confusing and overwhelming in this format.

This review is late. 2025 was a year of immense change for me and as a result I did not get my book reviews published in a timely manner. Please pardon me. I happen to have both read this and purchased my own copy in 2025.

Thank you to Hazel V. Carby, Brilliance Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

[lily]

i found these essays to be compelling, bold, intelligent—yet simultaneously too vague, dry, and meandering to be always effective. the strongest aspect of this collection by far is the depth and research with which the author approaches her own life experiences in the last few essays. throughout, the narrator gives a heartfelt and living performance that serves a lot to help highlight the best qualities of the author’s empathy and passion.

left me wanting to check out her other works, but not really able to leave a cohesive rating. and thanks to netgalley for the e-ARC! this was fun!

[Cheyenne Betancourt]

I am having great difficulty rating this book. I typically love academic focused works but I had difficulty following this book as it switched from academic analysis, biography, critique, etc. The author does an incredible job with outlining her research but I was distracted by the switch between historical/current information to personal life experience.

This was one of my first time reading a critique of African American Studies as an academic field. It was very thought provoking.

I'm not sure I would recommend the book as a whole but instead the reading of individual essays.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me the opportunity and access to an ARC.

[mood_reading_maya]

Stopped at 31%.

I tried, but the dry, academic writing style was challenging to engage with in audio format. Coupled with the fact that the arguments meander from point to point without a clear delineation back to the original chapter premise, I could not continue. Having just finished a book published by a university press written with a more engaging style and much clearer argumentative thread, the writing style in Racial Fictions is perhaps better suited to a particular type of academic reader. For the lay person interested in the impacts of racial myths and understanding how Black culture has been appropriated through history, this will be a frustrating read.

[Lindsay pinkcowlandreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

This is the most grade guide to the history of race had effects everyone today. A deeply intellectual look at literature and art throughout ages in the historical ramifications. This perspective of a race has created on all empires.

This book is highly educational and extremely addictive once you start listening. Information is incredibly fascinating and eye-opening. This is an excellent text to open a conversation on the myths in realities of race that we are all living in and how they continue to harm people.

The narrator, Nicola F Delgado reads the text clearly and enthusiastically. She provides a lot of spirit through reading which I feel captures the authors intention in the writing. A reading is easy to listen to and follow along. That being said this is also one of those books where I would have enjoyed to have the physical copy in my hands while listening to the narration.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to all readers

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

While race is at the core of each essay, this collection is strikingly eclectic in the assorted angles and questions that revolve around that center. Traversing social interaction, politics, history, the institution of academia, the publication industry, and even performance art, there is almost a pleasant meandering in the arrangement. That's not to say it was arbitrary. Rather, it felt like an ongoing conversation building upon previous exchanges when a similar situation arises.

I never felt my initial impression from the summary of “Eacial Fiction's”. It wasn't a call-to-arms lecture correcting and providing solutions for all the ills of world concerning the subject. Carby is direct, she doesn't mince words, and speaks with blunt honesty about things that others would see swept under the rug. She is also frequently venerable beyond sharing some very personal stories.

She asks as many questions as she walks through previously propagated ideas and practices. She offers the reader a new way of thinking, provides lacking context, as suggestion or clarification just as frequently as confronts a topic. She confesses she is continually seeking for answers herself. If I had the pleasure of being one of her students, I'd probably exhaust her with the amount of thoughts and she inspired.

I'm not inclined to take notes while reading personal selections. I have so many bookmarked moments in this, stopped to share something from it so frequently, I fear I've annoyed acquaintances instead of the author. I was engrossed. The work wasn't just accessible, it sparked a part of my brain I hadn't realized I had longed for. I became incredibly nostalgic for the days I first discovered media criticism in my academic years.

I had never stopped to think, or noticed deeply, how nationalism as a core value of the United States narrative factors so highly into racist practices and thoughts. Nor had I compared it to the situation in the rest of the Americas let alone internationally. I had regrettably bought into the notion that the UK was years ahead of us before recent political waves. To see the issues there framed as being a way to erase their colonial past makes perfect sense. "Racial Fictions" opened my eyes to more than hypocrites I'd already acknowledged.

Her call to academia and publishing had me vigorously agreeing as if I'd too known what had before been subconscious to me. The way a bestowed title on a subject of studies have been twisted into a marketing tool seems so obvious when stated. So are points made about the source of a voice coming from a selective pool for a particular reason. This type of reaction would reoccur between segments.

The level of philosophy applied, the open conversation, will make this a wonderful collection to revisit. Either because the reader has had time to reflect or because they question if ingrained thinking has colored what they perceived to be an essay's intent. The way in which the narrator of the audio version drew the listener in is also a compelling reason.

I am so delighted to have such an enlightening book been provided to me thanks to NetGalley. I will be thinking about the words within long after I have moved on to others. Spectacular collection.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

This book is very eye-opening, talking about both important things in history, and also personal anecdotes from the author herself. However I would not recommend this easily. It is a very dense read and feels like one would need at least more background information coming into this rather then someone just starting their adventure into more Black nonfiction and classics. While that does mean that I get some author recommendations some stuff does end up flying over my head.

Also I feel as though the essays picked out for this are all over the place. There isn't really a balance between them. The first section is very academic which seemingly sets the tone for the whole book- a tone I don't mind since I used to take home my school textbooks and read them for fun, then in the second section it hard pivots into essays that are much more personal, maybe even introspective at times which gave me quite jarring feeling even if they were a bit easier to read compared to the chapter about the torture that man is willing to commit.

Despite my comments do not think that this book is irredeemable, I'm giving it close to four stars for a reason. It touches on the struggles that specifically Black women face- even in Black spaces. How mixed people can be brushed to the side from the point of view of a mixed woman and it doesn't shy away when describing and talking about the horrors that the US Government has mandated or done from the perspective of someone who was not raised on US soil. It also talked about racism in Britain and the UK that I enjoyed since I don't know much about that history and topic.

But please be wary, this is not a book for everyone and I can completely understand the opinions of the other reviewers that have either DNFed before the 35% mark (which is roughly where the section section starts), or after, or ones who have given it a lower rating for reasons other than just being racist.

[Mim_Who _Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racial Fictions by Hazel V. Carby offers a deeply considered exploration of how race is constructed, circulated, and weaponized across cultures and historical moments. The author's critiques are sharp, but they’re never detached from the contexts that shaped the people, institutions, and narratives the essays examine. The essays and chapters confidently explore literature, politics, archival silences, and public discourse, tracing how racial logics travel and mutate. The author frames the material and references with clarity, making each argument fully accessible without oversimplifying her ideas.

What struck me most was how consistently Carby pushes readers to think beyond narrow, nation-bound understandings of racism. She reveals the ways racial thinking is entangled with empire, migration, and global systems of power, stretching far earlier and far wider than the timelines many of us default to. Her insights challenge comfortable assumptions while also offering a model for how to approach these subjects with both rigor and imagination. It’s a demanding book in the best way, rewarding anyone willing to engage seriously with the past and present realities of racial injustice.

Thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing | Brilliance Audio for the ALC. While the narrator's tone and voice was great, I think this book is best absorbed in tandem with a physical or electronic copy. Given that the author provides essays but also other references and chapters, it was hard to keep track of what was being told. Still that didn't take away from the overall impact of this book.

[Den · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

This book is a set of essays related to race, but mostly about blackness and blackness in America, since the author is half-black and she is drawing from her lived experience.

I appreciated the historical analysis part the most. In multiple essays the author draws a line between past and present racial relations to show that race relations of now are a product and consequence of history. Some of that history is being erased, but it does not stop affecting us now. An example would be the tortures that occurred in Abu Ghraib, and how pictures of the tortured bodies of Iraqis are the direct descendants of postcards of lynched black bodies from the past.

I also appreciated the part on cultural theory, especially about identity. I have always thought of it as something internal and never really considered how much it comes from outside--from the ways which we are recognized.

I was less keen on the part on literary criticism as aside from Olivia Butler, I am not at all familiar with the books she talked about.

This audiobook took me longer than usual to finish as each chapter is dense with ideas and information that I had to let sink in before I move on to the next essay. It's an informative and eye-opening book that gave me new perspectives about race, but it's definitely not a book you can binge read. Maybe read an essay or two in between other books.

[East of Reality · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a heavy book, which makes sense considering the content. It’s just not about “oooh, racisms bad!” It goes back into the founding of America, showing how those very first moments as indigenous people were othered and slaughtered, abused and betrayed as well as talking frankly about the treatment of enslaved black people, and how it was explained away through religion and psycobabble. This is not an easy read.

It can be hard, especially as a white person, to read books like this and know how to feel at the end. We want to believe we’re one of the good ones — I know I do! — we all want to believe that we’d never think that way, act that way, speak that way … but so much of how we treat and respond to other races is baked into even our earliest memories. Cartoons, books, family stories; even what we’re taught in school and how they gloss over so much, when they choose to talk about it at all.

This isn’t my usual nonfiction; I’ve said before I prefer trivia style books where I can pester people with wonderful new facts. While this book has some of that, the facts are … very far from wonderful. They’re sad, they’re horrible, and sadly none of them really surprised me. The writing is a bit stiff, but the author isn’t writing to tell a story but to collect their essays together. So I think this book would be pretty hit or miss, depending on what you’re looking to get out of it. It’s worth the read, but it did take me nearly halfway into the book to really get into the flow of the author’s voice.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racial Fictions by Hazel V Carby is an excellent collection of essays that is at times biting yet also understanding of context.

These essays cover about 20 years of her career, roughly 2001-2022, and from publications such as London Review of Books and several different scholarly journals, so a mix of intended audiences. These are quite accessible while maintaining a certain rigor necessary for the arguments presented. In some of the essays I was only familiar with a couple of the sources she cited but that wasn't an issue because she does an excellent job of stating what she is referring to from each.

While each essay is a self-contained argument or observation, there are plenty of threads running through them. What your main takeaway is may well be different from mine. For me, this entire book served as a reminder to view racism in its many forms as international in scope and much further back in time than the national history I often think in, which is the US.

Highly recommended for readers with an interest in past and present of racism and a desire to work on curbing and eliminating it in the future. Be ready to put in a little work while reading, this isn't a pop theory book, but everything is clearly discussed.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I’ve been spending some time reading about race-based politics and historical injustice, so Racial Fictions is just the sort of audiobook I like to listen to. It’s a very detailed socially engaged analysis of racism dating back hundreds of years. The book is set up so that it explores culture, identity and systemic racism through a scholarly yet accessible format in essays that were written over the past 25 years.

When I think of racism, I naturally think of the history of the United States and the long history of keeping people enslaved. But racism in its many forms goes back even further when you take a broader look of the world at large.

I do have to be honest here, some of these essays come across as too academic in one sense, their dry delivery meant I did not listen to the audiobook in one sitting. But the depth of research the author made is clearly evident, and her weaving in her own life experiences helps a lot. As with any scholarly book, I have to remind myself that its best consumed in small chucks instead of powering through to finish in one day. The narration by Nicola F. Delgado helped a lot; they have a very good voice that matched the material very well.

[KRM · Rating 5 out of 5]

STUNNING! I can't tell you how many times I audibly gasped, rewound the audio, and listened again. So many brilliant insights.

My favorite section was the question about when the 'modern' idea of race begins. When it might begin even within someone's lifetime. I was hoping we would get more of an answer, but I suppose it's a neigh impossible task. The conversation about how one would even start to answer that question was fascinating.

This is a big picture book with a lot of really complicated sentences and terms-- it's much more fun if you already have read Dubois works and can follow why a particular publication is less popular with conservatives etc. I read a lot of academic books, and this one made my brain work for each paragraph. That's ok, just something to note.

I finished this book thinking that I wanted to read everything else Carby has ever written, it was that good!

Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy, all opinions are my own.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an audio ARC of this collection and, while this topic is something that I’m passionate about, trying to follow the essays was extremely difficult. Individual chapters were fascinating, but there wasn’t a clear structure that I could determine while listening - no pattern or flow from one work to the next. This made the content difficult for me to contextualize at times. 



I am hesitant to rate this book as I feel the content is important but the audio format made it hard to follow. I think that to fully engage with this work, I will need to revisit a physical or electronic copy once it’s released to determine what I might have missed over audio.

[Denisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley and Verso books for the e-ARC.

Racial Fictions is a deeply researched study of how modern ideas of race were invented, circulated, and sustained through politics, culture, and everyday life. The essays offer sharp and brilliant insights into racial formation and power, but the prose is highly academic, with complex sentences that can feel dry and difficult to navigate, even when the subject matter is compelling. Overall, it is a rewarding but demanding read: a book that expands understanding of race and racism, yet one that is easier to admire for its intellectual rigor than to breeze through for enjoyment.

[Crystal Palmisano-Dillard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is 100% written for an academic audience and because of that a ton of the information goes over my head or I struggle to keep up with the author's meandering journey to her point.

While some parts hit me hard (the connection of the punitive "pressing" with George Floyd's murder), I know I missed a lot more points.

I can't judge the author for my inability to keep up with her mental thought processes, but I kinda want a dummy or synopsis version so I can more fully process her observations.

[Critter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio ARC.

This is a very well written book. There was a lot of research put into this book. For me I found the writing to be very engaging. I loved that the essays in this collection covered so much information and ideas. The history was very interesting and I loved how the author navigated the different intricacies. The narrator was also phenomenal and was great to listen to.