Citizen: An American Lyric
Claudia Rankine moves between second person prose poems on small racist encounters, longer essays on Serena Williams and Hurricane Katrina, and scripts for films on the deaths of Trayvon Martin, James Craig Anderson, and others. The book uses photographs, paintings, and stills as part of the argument, treating the page as a visual surface. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry and was a finalist in criticism in the same year, an unusual double. The book has been adopted across syllabi as a contemporary classic on race and citizenship. Strayed has called it a great graduation gift on the Tim Ferriss Show.
What you might want to know about Citizen: An American Lyric
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Claudia Rankine's genre breaking book length lyric on race in America, mixing prose poetry, visual art, and reported scenes from daily life.
On The Tim Ferriss Show, Strayed named Citizen as one of the books she recommends as a gift, including for graduations, calling it essential reading for anyone trying to understand contemporary American life.
Both. Rankine calls it a lyric and the book moves between prose poems, essays, and image based scripts. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the poetry category.
Citizen: An American Lyric was written by Claudia Rankine, published in 2014 by Graywolf Press.
Citizen: An American Lyric is 160 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Citizen: An American Lyric takes most readers 2 to 3 hours to finish.
Citizen: An American Lyric is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
