Benjamin "Chappie" Puttbutt, a black juior professor at the overwhelmingly white Jack London College, lusts after tenure and its glorious perks (including a house in the Oakland Hills). He spends most of his time trying to divine the ideological climate of the school and obligingly adapting his beliefs to it. When Puttbutt's mysterious Japanese tutor, who promises to teach him Japanese by spring, suddenly becomes the school's new president and appoints Puttbutt as academic dean, the fun really begins—for Puttbutt sets out to stir things up and settle old scores.
Turning every contemporary political and social movement on its head—from feminism to nationalism to jingoism—this boistrois and irreverent novel manages to be by turns hilarious and totally serious.
"One of the funniest satires of university politics I've ever read. Ishmael Reed is funnier than Norman Mailer or Gore Vidal." —Leslie Marmon Silko
"Reed is, as always, an American original; a wiseguy whose wisdom is the real thing," —The Boston Sunday Globe

Japanese by Spring

Literature & Fiction

Reed, Ishmaël

Humor & Satire

Penguin Publishing Group

Airing Dirty Laundry

Nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Ishmael Reed now returns with a boisterous and irreverent collection of nonfiction writing. "Always provocative, sometimes infuriating, this collection reminds us that the purpose of art is not to confirm and coddle but to provoke and confront."-- The New York Times Book Review.

Essays & Correspondence

Da Capo Press

Writing Is Fighting: Forty Three Years of Boxing on Paper

Addison-Wesley

A collection of essays by the founder of the Before Columbus Foundation takes on the major news networks and National Public Radio and makes clear his views on such names in the news as Clarence Thomas and Mike Tyson.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

'A great writer' James Baldwin 'Part vision, part satire, part farce ... a wholly original, unholy cross between the craft of fiction and witchcraft' The New York Times A plague is spreading across 1920s America, racing from New Orleans to New York. It's an epidemic of free expression, carried by black artists, and its symptoms are an uncontrollable urge to dance, sing, laugh and jive. The state will stop at nothing to suppress the outbreak, but, deep in the heart of Harlem, private eye and Vodum priest Papa LaBas has other ideas - and, possibly, the key to everything. A freewheeling, explosive blend of jazz, ragtime, ancient myth, magic and conspiracy thriller, this anarchic postmodern classic is a satire for our times.

Mumbo Jumbo

Contemporary

Penguin Classics

Flight to Canada

NeoHooDoo, a phrase coined by the poet Ishmael Reed in 1970, celebrates the practice of rituals, folklore, and spirituality in the Americas beyond the scope of Christianity and organized religion. The endurance of these centuries-old traditions of magic and healing are the unique focus of this book. Exploring how spirituality influenced artists in the late 20th century and bringing together an intergenerational group of artists from North, Central, and South America, NeoHooDoo reveals the wider implications of ritualized practice in contemporary art.
This book examines the work of thirty-three artists––including Jimmie Durham, David Hammons, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore, and James Lee Byars––who began using ritualistic practices during the 1970s and 1980s as a way of reinterpreting aspects of their cultural heritage. Younger artists such as Tania Bruguera and Michael Joo are shown to have drawn upon the iconography of ritual. The original essays, which range over artistic use of ritual as a form of therapy, catharsis, or political critique, stand alongside contributions from NeoHooDoo’s key sources of inspiration: Robert Farris Thompson, Ishmael Reed, and Quincy Troupe.

NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

The Menil Collection

Supported by powerful director Jim Minsk and preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, Ian Ball, a Black southern playwright hated by theater feminists, hopes to redeem himself with a play in which women have all the good parts

Reckless Eyeballing

United States

St Martins Pr

The Terrible Twos

When a "Boss" tries to buy the exclusive rights to Santa Claus--the "Bosses" being already in possession of Government and Religion--St. Nicholas, in league with his medieval partner Black Peter, unleashes a whirlwind of havoc and confusion

st.martins press

"The Last Days of Louisiana Redblends paradox, hyperbole, understatement and signifyin' so expertlyyou can almost hear a droll black voice telling the tales as you readit." - The New Republic 
When Papa LaBas (private eye, noonday HooDoo, and hero of Reed's Mumbo Jumbo) comes to Berkeley, California, to investigate the mysterious death of Ed Yellings, owner of the Solid Gumbo Works, he finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and those militant opportunists, the Moochers. 
A HooDoo detective story and a comprehensive satire on the explosive politics of the '60s, The Last Days of Louisiana Red exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary American culture and race politics.

Last Days of Louisiana Red

Literary

Avon/Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Reed, Ishmaël. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Reed, Ishmaël

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Reed, Ishmaël. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Japanese by Spring

Airing Dirty Laundry

Writing Is Fighting: Forty Three Years of Boxing on Paper

Airing Dirty Laundry

Mumbo Jumbo

Flight to Canada

NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith

Reckless Eyeballing

The Terrible Twos

Last Days of Louisiana Red