Blindsided: Essays from the Only Black Woman in the Room by Dawn Downey

With riveting sermons of prose, Dawn Downey captures deeply private yet broadly relatable snapshots of life as a black woman in Blindsided: Essays from the Only Black Woman in the Room. From the complicated perils of language and the bloody crossroads of religion and racism, to the nexus of art and the size of one’s assigned space in the world, this is a fearless collection that is painfully relevant for today’s readers. Spilling such intimate insights through brilliant, well-drawn prose is an undertaking where most authors fail; these essays, however, are provocative, subtle, and captivating – often within the same breath.