Error message

Deprecated function: The each() function is deprecated. This message will be suppressed on further calls in menu_set_active_trail() (line 2344 of /home/eioqu57efm7j/public_html/drupal/includes/menu.inc).

COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nike Air Force 1 High Cheap, Nike Air Force 1 High Black Cheap Nike Air Force 1 High Cheap, Nike Air Force 1 High Black Cheap

Novels (partial listing of first editions, including international editions and reprints)

The Terrible Fours, Montreal: Baraka Books, 2021.
Conjugating Hindi, Champaign and London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2018.
Juice! Champaign and London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2011.
Japanese By Spring, New York: Atheneum, 1993.
- Japans in’n Jaar. Amsterdam: In de Knipscheer, 1995.
- Japanese By Spring. London: Alison & Busby, 1994.
The Terrible Threes. New York: Atheneum, 1989.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 1999.
- The Terrible Threes. London: Alison & Busby, 1993.
- Los Fatales Tres. Barcelona: Grijalbro Mondadori, S.A., 1993.
-Die Weihnachtsmann-Connection. Frankfort: Fisher Verlag Gmbh, 2016.
The Terrible Twos. New York: Atheneum, 1982.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 1999.
- Klaus en Claus. Amsterdam: In De Knipscheer, 1984.
- Die Weihnachtsmann Connection. Frankfurt am Main, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 2016.
- Die Weihnachtsmann Connection. Frankfurt am Main, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1993.
Reckless Eyeballing. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 2000.
- Reckless Eyeballing. London: Alison & Busby, 1989.
- Conremplacion Temeria. Barcelona/Mexico City: Modadori, 1991.
Flight To Canada. New York: Random House, 1976.
- Penguin Classics. UK Penguin Random House, 2018.
- Het Vluchtvirus. Amsterdam: In de Knipscheer, 1977.
Vuelo a Canadá, translation by Inga Pellisa. Barcelona: La Fuga ediciones, S.L., 2018.
The Last Days Of Louisiana Red. New York: Random House, 1974.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 2000.
- Los Ultimos Dias de Louisiana Red. Barcelona: Modadori, 1991.
Mumbo Jumbo. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972.
Mumbo Jumbo. 50th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Reed, Scribner, forthcoming 2022.
- Paris: C. Bourgois, 2022. Editions De l’Olivier / Le Seuil, translation to French by Gérard H. Durand, 1975, 1998.
- Krakow: Korporacja Ha!art, translation to Polish by Teresa Tyszowiecka-Blask, 2021.
- Beijing: Yanshan Press of Uni-wisdom Media, translation to Chinese by Yuqing Lin, 2019.
- London:  Penguin Classics edition, 2017.
- Barcelona: La Fuga Ediciones, translation to Spanish by Inga Pellisa, and prologue by Juan Francisco Ferré, 2016.
- Roma: Minimum Fax edition, 2016
- Scribner paperback edition, 1996.
- Atheneum paperback edition, 1988.
- London: Allison & Busby, 1988.
- Milano: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 1981.
- Barcelona/Mexico/Buenos Aires: Grijalbo, 1972.
- Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai Ltd.
Yellow-Back Radio Broke-Down. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 2000.
- London: Alison & Busby, 1971
- Japan: Takaaki Iida, 1994.
The Free Lance Pallbearers. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967.
- Dalkey Archive Press paperback edition, 1999.
- England: W.H. Allen, 1990.
- London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1968

Excepts from Novels-in-Progress "The Terrible Fours." Science fiction that appeared in Coda magazine, 2001; "Making A Killing." (Early version of a novel centered on O.J. Simpson, now titled and published as Juice!) Appeared in Artbyte magazine, 2001

Poetry

  • Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, Poems 2007-2019, Champaign, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 2020.
  • New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006. (New and Collected Poems, 1964-2007. New York: Thunder’s Mouth. The 2007 paperback edition added 2 new poems.)
  • New & Collected Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1989.
  • Chattanooga. New York. New York: Random House, 1973.
  • Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1972.
  • A Secretary To The Spirits. Lagos, Nigeria: NOK Publishers, 1978.
  • catechism of d neoamerican hoodoo church. London: Paul Breman, 1969.

Essays and Other Non-Fiction

  • Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico, Baraka Books of Montreal, 2019
  • The Complete Muhammad Ali. Montreal, Canada: Baraka Books, 2015.
  • Going Too Far: Essays About America's Nervous Breakdown. Montreal, Canada: Baraka Books, 2012.
  • Barack Obama and The Media Bullies, or The Return of the “Nigger Breakers” Montreal, Canada: Baraka Books, 2010.
  • Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media and other Reflections. New York: Da Capo Press, Perseus imprint, 2008.
  • Blues City, A Walk in Oakland. NY: Crown Journeys, Crown Publishers, 2003.
  • Another Day at the Front, Dispatches from the Race War. New York: Basic Books, A member of the Perseus Books Group, 2003.
  • Oakland Rhapsody, The Secret Soul Of An American Downtown. Introduction and Commentary by Ishmael Reed and photographs by Richard Nagler. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1995.
  • Airing Dirty Laundry. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993; Trapos Sucios. Madrid: LaOficina / BAAM, 2012 with translation by Javier Lucini and Introduction by Mireia Sentis.
  • Writin’ Is Fightin’. New York, Atheneum, 1989. Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 1998. Translated to Japanese by Yuko Matsutani.

     

  • God Made Alaska For The Indians. New York: Garland, 1982.
  • Shrovetide In Old New Orleans. Garden City: Doubleday, 1978.
  • Shrovetide In Old New Orleans. Atheneum paperback, 1989.

Novella

Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon or The Hexorcism of Noxon D Awful. Flint, Michigan: Bamberger Books, 1986. First appeared in Amistad I, edited by John A. Williams and Charles Harris, in 1970.

 

 

Plays

The Shine Challenge, 2024. Premiered as a virtual reading hosted by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in February 2024. 

The Conductor. Premiere production: March 9-26, with return engagement of a revised/updated production Aug. 24-September 10, 2023, Theater for the New City.

The Slave Who Loved Caviar. Premiere production: December 2021-January 2022, Theater for the New City. Archway Editions, 2023.

The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda. Archway Editions, 2020.

         Premiere production: May 2019 at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

Life Among the AryansPremiere June 2018 at the Nuyorican Poets Café. Archway Editions, 2021.

The Final Version. Premiere December 2013 at the Nuyorican Poets Café. Archway Editions, 2022.

Ishmael Reed, THE PLAYS. Champaign and London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2009.

     A collection of six plays, as listed below with date of premiere performance:
- Body Parts (October, 2007; as Tough Love, 2004)
- C Above C Above High C (1997)
- The Preacher and the Rapper (1995)
- Hubba City (1989, 1994)
- Savage Wilds (1988 Part I; 1990, Part II)
- Mother Hubbard (1979; 1997 [musical version])

Libretto Gethsemane Park (originally commissioned by The San Francisco Opera, 1994). Premiered 1998 at Berkeley Black Repertory Theater Group. 

Audio books The Man Who Haunted Himself. Audible.com. (available from November 17, 2022).

The Fool Who Thought Too Much, a short story. Audible.com. https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Fool-Who-Thought-Too-Much-Audiobook/B08MB...

Malcolm and Me. Audible.com 2020. Written and narrated by Ishmael Reed. https://www.audible.com/pd/Malcolm-and-Me-Audiobook/B083MTL2CC

Collected works The Reed Reader. New York: Basic Books, 2000. (Includes an introduction by Reed, excerpts from all of his novels, selected essays, selected published and unpublished poetry, and two plays: Hubba City and The Preacher and the Rapper)

Anthology Editor

Bigotry on Broadway, co-edited with Carla Blank, Baraka Books, 2021.
Black Hollywood UnChained, Third World Press, 2015.
POWWOW, Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience-Short Fiction from Then to Now. Da Capo Press, 2009. Edited with Carla Blank.
From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2001. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003.
MultiAmerica, Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace. New York: Viking, 1997.
General Editor, The HarperCollins Literary Mosaic Series:
- Native American Literature, A Brief Introduction and Anthology, edited by Gerald Vizenor (1995)
- Hispanic American Literature, A Brief Introduction and Anthology, edited by Nicolas Kanellos (1995)
- Asian American Literature, A Brief Introduction and Anthology, edited by Shawn Wong (1996)
- African American Literature, A Brief Introduction and Anthology, edited by Al Young (1996)
The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology, Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990. Co-edited with Kathryn Trueblood and Shawn Wong. New York & London: W.W. Norton, 1991.
The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology, Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990. Co-Edited with Kathryn Trueblood and Shawn Wong. New York & London: W.W. Norton, 1991.
Califia: The California Poetry, General Editor. Berkeley: Y’bird Books,1978.
Yardbird Lives!, Co-Edited with Al Young. New York: Grove Press, 1978.
19 Necromancers From Now. Garden City: Doubleday, 1970.
The Rise, Fall, And . . . ? of Adam Clayton Powell. New York: Bee-Line Books, 1967.

Selected Contributions to poetry, short story and nonfiction anthologies and magazines

  • "The Satin Sisters and Afro-Asian Intimacies in the Bay," California Book Club, April 11, 2024.
  • "Voting For A Man Who Called Black Mothers Bitches?" CounterPunch, April 5, 2024.
  • "For Some Black and brown boys gaining literacy is easier in prison than in School," San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2024.
  • "Will the media elite help Trump again?" El Pais, January 3, 2024. 
  • "Millions of American Whites Prefer A Dictatorship," an essay in El Pais, July 26, 2023.
  • "Is Killing Blacks a Growth Industry," an essay in CounterPunch, June 2, 2023.
  • "Tennessee Has Two White Faces. I've Seen Both of Them," an essay in Politico, May 5, 2023.
  • "Guilt Mountain," a poem in The New Yorker, March 13, 2023.
  • "A New Flame For Black Fire," an essay in the New York Review of Books, January 13, 2023.
  • "The Buffalo I Knew," an essay in the New York Review of Books, July 9, 2022.
  • "Lady Stardust," a poem in Alta, June 29, 2022.
  • “One Man’s Poi Is Another Man’s Poison,” in Fourteen Days: An Unauthorized Gathering, edited by Margaret Atwood. NY: HarperCollins, forthcoming September 2022.
  • “Remembering the Albany 3,” a poem in Four Hundred Souls. Kendi, Ibram X. and Keisha N. Bain, editors. New York: One World, 2021, (181-84).
  • 3 poems in African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. Young, Kevin, editor.  New York, Library of America, 2020, (520-23).
  • “Refusing to Go There,” in “A tribute to Adrienne Kennedy.” American Theatre, September 2019.
  • “Was Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. Too Good For America?” in Crossing the Line: Arthur Ashe at the 1968 US Open, photographs by John G. Zimmerman. Funes, Belgium: Hannibal, 2018.
  • "Writers and Hotels," a poem in Histoires Sans Suite/Suite Stories, edited by Karin Janssen. Montréal: Le Saint-Suplice Hôtel Montréal, 2014.
  • "Fallacies of the Post Race Presidency," an essay in The Trouble with Post-Blackness, edited by Houston Baker, Jr. NY: New York University Press, 2014. 
  • Mount, Jane and Thessaly La Force. My Ideal Bookshelf. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
  • “Sweet Pea,” a poem, in French translation. l’art du jazz Paris, France: Éditions du Félin, 2011.
  • “Mark Twain’s Hairball (1884)” in A New Literary History of America, edited by Greil Marcus and Wernor Sollors. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
  • “Sonny Rollins, the Colossus” in The Vibe, Raw and Uncut (reprint of interview published October 1996 in Vibe, with additional 2007 interview). New York: Vibe Street Lit, 2007.
  • “Miles Davis at The Casablanca, Buffalo, New York, September 21, 1955” in The Show I’ll Never Forget, edited by Sean Manning. New York: Da Capo Press, 2007.
  • “Jefferson Davis,” in American Monsters, 44 Rats, Blackhats, and Plutocrats, edited by Jack Newfield and Mark Jacobson. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004.
  • “Color Blind,” an essay in Linda Brown, You are Not Alone: The Brown v. Board of Education Decision, edited by Joyce Carol Thomas. New York: Jump at the Sun, Hyperion Books for Children, 2003.
  • “My 1960s,” in Rediscovering America, the Making of Multicultural America, 1900-2000, written and edited by Carla Blank. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.
  • “America United,” a poem, in September 11, West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero, edited by Jeff Meyers. Portland, Oregon: Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, 2002.
  • “Another Day at the Front, Encounters with the Fuzz on the American Battlefield” in Police Brutality, an anthology edited by Jill Nelson. New York & London: W.W. Norton and Co., 2000.
  • “Future Christmas,” (excerpt from the novel The Terrible Twos), in Dark Matter, A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree R.Thomas. NY: Warner Books, 2000.
  • “Progress: A Faustian Bargain,” in How We Want to Live, narratives on progress edited by Susan Richards Shreve and Porter Shreve. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
  • “Bigger and O.J.,” in Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case, edited by Toni Morrison and Claudia Brodsky Lacour. New York: Pantheon, 1997.
  • Untitled essay, in Swing Low, Black Men Writing. Edited by Rebecca Carroll. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1995.
  • “America: The Multinational Society,” in The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy, Opening the American Mind, edited by Rick Simonson & Scott Walker. Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1988.
  • “I Am a Cowboy In the Boat of Ra” and “beware : do not read this poem” in The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Arthur M. Eastman, Coordinating Editor with Alexander W. Allison, Herbert Barrows, Caesar R. Blake, Arthur J. Carr, Hubert M. English, Jr. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1970. (Begins with anonymous medieval lyrics that predate Chaucer; ends with Reed)

Introductions, Forewords and Afterwords to other authors' works

  • Erizku, Awol. Mystic Parallax. New York: Aperture and Momentary, 2023.
  • Williams, John A. The Man Who Cried I Am. New York: Library of America, 2023.
  • Hernton, Calvin C. Selected Poems. New York: Wesleyan University Press, 2023.
  • Killens, John Oliver. The Minister Primarily: A Novel. New York: Amistad, July 2021.
  • Fréger, Charles. Cimarron: Freedom and Masquerade. London: Thames & Hudson, 2019.
  • Wright, Charles. The Collected Novels of Charles Wright. New York: Harper Perennial, 2019.
  • Jackson-Gent, Cathy. Surviving Financially in a Rigged System. Chicago: Third World Press Foundation, 2019.
  • Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: New American Library, 2013.
  • Ali, Wajahat. The Domestic Crusaders. A play. San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books, 2010.
  • Wilson, August. Century Cycle. Introduction to the play Jitney. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2007.
  • Chesnutt, Charles. The Colonel’s Dream. New York: Harlem Moon, a Doubleday imprint, 2005.
  • Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. Audio Guide: The Big Read. Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, 2007.
  • Matlin, David. Inside the New America: From Vernooykill Creek to Abu Ghraib. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2005.
  • Wright, Charles. The Wig. San Francisco: Mercury House, NEA Heritage & Preservation Series, 2003.
  • Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. New York: Signet Classic, New American Library, 2000.
  • Schuyler, George. Black No More. New York: Modern Library Edition, 1999.
  • Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. NY: A Laurel Book published by Dell Publishing, 1992.
  • Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. Series Editor: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

Scholarly articles

  • Black Scholar “Ralph Ellison and the Agony of the Token.” Volume 38 Number 1, Spring 2008.
  • Comparative American Studies “The Celtic in Us.” Special Issue on the Celtic Nations and African Americans. Volume 8 No. 4, December, 2010.
  • American Studies/Amerikastudien in “Ethnic Studies in the Age of the Tea Party.” Guest editors: Glenda R. Carpio and Werner Sollors Universit?tsverlag Heidelberg: Volume 55, Number 4, 2010.
  • Modern Drama “Diminutive Playwright Tackles Criminal Justice Dragon.” Volume 55, Number 1, Spring 2012, University of Toronto Press.
  • American Book Review “Created in the '60s." March/April 2014.

Selected news media and other journals where essays, poetry, etc. has appeared in: Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Newsday, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Japan Times, Le Monde, Yale Review, Black Scholar, Black Renaissance Noire, San Diego Reader, American Journalism Review, Emerge Magazine, Essence Magazine, American Unte Reader, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, Connoisseur, Time, Life, Ebony, Vibe, Modern Maturity, Playboy, Stone Canoe, Salon.com, CounterPunch.com, Slate, El Pais, Haaretz, Politico, New York Review of Books.

Publications Honoring Reed

  • McSweeney Books’ chapbook 2011 Barbary Coast Award commemorative publication. Reflections on Reed from writers, musicians, journalists, and scholars, some of whom were his former students (November, 2011)
  • The Los Angeles Review Poems: “Bad Mouth” and “In A War Such Things Happen” are included in this issue dedicated to Ishmael Reed. (Volume 10, Fall 2011)

Magazine editor, 1972-present

  • Konch, online at www. ishmaelreedpub.com since January, 1999 Konch, Volumes 1-9, print version, 1990-1999
  • Vines, international student anthology online at ishmaelreedpub.com, 1999-2004
  • Quilt, Volumes 1-5, 1981-1986
  • Y’bird, 1976-1978 (with Al Young)
  • Yardbird Reader, Volumes 1-5, 1971-1976 (with Al Young)

Recorded Spoken Word and Music Projects with Lyrics or Compositions by Reed

  • Blues Lyrics by Ishmael Reed (Konch Records, 2023) Reed delivers his own lyrics, joined by the West Coast Blues Caravan of All Stars: Art Hafen, trombone; Gregorg "Gman"Simmons, bass; Michael Skinner, drums; Michael Robinson, keyboard; Ronnie Stewart, drums and guitar; with guest artist David Murray, saxophone.
  • The Hands of Grace. (The Reading Group, November 2022) Reed plays his own compositions on piano. Joined by Roger Glenn on flute and saxophone; Ray Obiedo, guitar; Carla Blank, violin; Ronnie Stewart, guitar; and poet Tennessee Reed.
  • Blues for Memo (Doublemoon Records) includes Reed's poem, "Red Summer" set to music by David Murray, 2016.
  • Yosvany Terry's latest CD New Throned Kings (SPassion 2014), a 2014 Grammy nomination, includes lyrics by Ishmael Reed on "Mase Nadodo."
  • David Murray’s newest album, Blues for Memo (Doublemoon Records) includes Reed's poem, "Red Summer," set to music by David Murray, 2016. His Be My Monster Love features 3 new songs with lyrics by Ishmael Reed: with Gregory Porter singing “Army of the Faithful” and “‘Hope is a Thing with Feathers,’” and Macy Gray singing the title track, “Be My Monster Love.” (3D Family, 2013)
  • The Devil Tried to Kill Me with David Murray and Gwo Ka Masters. Reed lyrics featured on “Afrika,” sung by Taj Mahal; and Sista Kee singing the title track (Justin Time & 3D Family, 2009)
  • Sacred Ground. With David Murray and the Black Saint Quartet, featuring Cassandra Wilson singing 2 texts by Ishmael Reed, including the title track and “The Prophet of Doom. Selected for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and PBS television. (3D Family & Justin Time, 2007)
  • For All We Know with the Ishmael Reed quintet, features David Murray (sax, bass clarinet and piano), and Carla Blank (violin), Roger Glenn (flute), Chris Planas (guitar), and Ishmael Reed (piano) on 9 jazz standards, and 3 original collaborations with text by Reed and music composed by David Murray, were first performed by Ishmael Reed on this privately produced CD. David Murray created different compositions for these Reed lyrics for the film and CD, Sacred Ground. (Ishmael Reed Publishing, 2007)
  • Conjure Bad Mouth With musical compositions set to texts of Ishmael Reed by Billy Bang, Anthony Cox, David Murray, Leo Nocentelli, Fernando Saunders, Yosvanni Terry, and vocal solos by Alvin Youngblood Hart and Fernando Saunders. (Produced by Kip Hanrahan on American Clavé, 2006)
  • Conjure: Cab Calloway Stands In For The Moon, (II), contains musical compositions set to Reed’s texts by various composers including Allen Toussaint, Don Pullen, Leo Nocentelli, Steve Swallow, Olu Dara, David Murray, Carman Moore and Kip Hanrahan. Vocals by Bobby Womack, Clare Bathe, Robert Jason, Fernando Saunders, and others. Produced by Kip Hanrahan for American Clavé in 1988 and reissued by Rounder Records, 1995
  • Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed (I), recorded following a live concert at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in New York City. Compositions by Allen Toussaint, David Murray, Taj Mahal, Kip Hanrahan, Lester Bowie, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, and Carman Moore, with vocals by Taj Mahal, Robert Jason, Olu Dara and others. Produced by Kip Hanrahan for American Clavé in 1984 and reissued by Rounder Records, 1995.

Collaborations with composers and musicians in live concerts (partial)

  • Conjure Tours:
    • Conjure in Concert. Performance at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, New York City, with texts by Reed set to music by various composers that was the basis for the first Conjure album, recorded immediately after the concert, by all participants, in 1983. Produced by Kip Hanrahan
    • European Tour, 1993: including Amsterdam, Vienna, Hamburg, and Mainz. Produced by Kip Hanrahan
    • European Tour, April, 2003: Banlieuses Blues, Paris; the Barbican, London. Produced by 3 D Family
    • Tokyo, Japan, August, 2004: The Blue Note. Produced by The Blue Note
  • The Wild Gardens of the Loup Garou with poetry by Reed and Colleen McElroy and music by Carman Moore (1981, 1989)
  • Esprits D’ Afrique, Musee en Musique presented by and at Le Musée Dapper Produced by 3D Family. Paris, France, April 2002
  • Music and the Spoken Word for Peace” Collaboration with poems of Reed and his reading of Daisaku Ikeda’s poems, Knitting Factory, NYC, 04/17/04
  • Collaboration with violinist Billy Bang, Yoshi’s, Oakland, Ca. Nov. 15, 2004
  • “Fighting for Peace,” in collaboration with pianist Mary Watkins and Joyce Kouffman & Group. San Francisco Public Library, January 23, 2005
  • Jazz à la Villette, Grande Halle. Paris. Red Bull Music Academy World Tour. Concert by Macy Gray, Tony Allen, members of the Roots, David Murray and his Big Band, Amp Fiddler and Fela! singer/dancers. Premiere 3 new songs with lyrics by Ishmael Reed, September 11, 2011.
  • Ishmael Reed Quintet appeared twice at Yoshi’s and at the Barbary Coast Award event at Z Space in San Francisco, 2011
  • Ishmael Reed performs in collaboration with Eric Harland's Voyager band at SF Jazz Center, January 10, 2016.
  • St. Anna, Sardinia, Italy, August, 2012:  Sardegno e Jazz, jazz festival co-produced by Kip Hanrahan

Public Art Installations, Film and Video Collaborations (partial)

  • 2021 Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez. Interview with Reed.
  • 2017 LIT CITY banner along Washington Street in Buffalo, New York, as part of a celebration of the city's literary history
  • 2013 SF JAZZ Center, which opened in January 2013, installs Reed's poem, "When I Die I Will Go to Jazz," on the Center's North Gate in Linden Alley
  • 2013 Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic, a documentary dilm directed by Marina Zenovich. Winner of an Image Award for Outstanding Documentary, TV.
  • 2010-2013 A collaborative public art installation work, “Moving Richmond,” for Richmond’s BART station, incorporates two of Reed’s poem, written for this project after meetings with Richmond residents, into a mounted iron sculpture by Mildred Howard.
  • 2012 United States of HooDoo, a documentary film by Oliver Hardt and Darius James, was released in Germany and premiered in August at the Black Star Film Festival in Philadelphia. Reed is a featured participant. 
  • 2011 “beware do not read this poem.” Included in stone installation and audio recording by Rochester Poets Walk. Rochester, New York.
  • 2010 “The Groundbreaking Bill Gunn,” at BAM Cinematek, April1-4, featured a re-mastered "Personal Problems" (1980), the experimental soap opera conceived and produced by Ishmael Reed.
  • 2009-2010 A 1972 manifesto, “NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith,” inspired a major visual art exhibit, “NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith,” curated by Franklin Sirmans for The Menil Collection in Houston, where it opened June 27, 2008, and subsequently traveled to P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City, and the Miami Art Museum through 2009. The Menil Collection also published "NeoHooDoo, Art for a Forgotten Faith," edited by Franklin Sirmans, in 2008. Distributed by Yale University Press, it includes Sirmans’ interview with Ishmael Reed.
  • 2009 Michael Jackson. Britain: BBC Culture Show, in which Reed’s September interview at the Nuyorican Poets Café is featured in a December broadcast
  • 2008 Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, directed by Stefan Forbes, premiered as a nationally distributed independent film that includes Reed in interview clips. Reed also participated in Q&A’s at its Mill Valley Film Festival showing and in New York City.
  • 2004 A bronze plaque of “Going East” installed in the Berkeley Poetry Walk in Berkeley, California, designated a National Poetry Landmark by the Academy of American Poets.
  • 1990 James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket. Independent film, directed by Karin Thorsen, includes Reed in interview clips and reading from Baldwin’s work.
  • 1983 (?) There with Ishmael Reed.  Independent film by Allen Willis.
  • 1972 “from the files of agent 22.” Poem posted in New York City buses and subways by Poetry in Public Places, as part of a special project of the American International Sculptors Symposium, Inc.

Producer: Stage, Film and Video Productions

  • Personal Problems, a video soap opera directed by Bill Gunn; Concept by Reed, 1980.  Restored and digitized by Kono Lorber, 2018.
  • A Word In Edgewise, a conversation with Al Young; Videographer, Allen Willis.
  • Savage Wilds, from the Nuyorican Poets Café production; Director, Rome Neal
  • The Only Language She Knows. 28 minute video. Two character drama with script by Genny Lim. Director, Carla Blank. Videographer, Allen Willis. World Premiere, East Bay Video Festival, Berkeley, CA., 1992.
  • Two-Fer. 41 minute video drama. Written and directed by Cecil Brown. World Premiere, San Francisco Black Film Festival, 2003; Berlin Film Festival, 2003.
  • The Domestic Crusaders. 2-act play by Wajahat Ali. Director, Carla Blank. Presented in SF Bay area staged readings April 30-May 2, 2004 at Mehran Restaurant in Newark, and Main Branch of the Oakland Public Library; showcase productions: Thrust Theatre (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), 7/2005, and San Jose State University Theatre, 9/2005. NYC premiere at the Nuyorican Poets Café, 9/11-10/11/2009. International premiere: 2010 MuslimFest, Mississauga, Canada. Millennium Hall, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., 11/14/10. Theater Festival participant in Art of Justice: 9/11 Performance Project at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City, September 10-11. 2011.Since McSweeney’s publication of the script in 2011, the play has been studied and mounted in college productions throughout the U.S., and a new British production opens in London, in September, 2013, produced by TARA Arts, working with the U.S. State Department.

 

Sources for Critical Interpretations, Interviews, and Bibliographies on Reed (Partial)

  • Tone Glow 102: "Ishmael Reed, " an interview by Joshua Minsoo Kim. September 19, 2023 https://toneglow.substack.com/p/tone-glow-102-ishmael-reed  (NOTE: This interview contains some inaccuracies, so if you wish to quote from it, please check with Ishmael Reed.)
  • "Ishmael Reed with Bob Holman," a conversation.  The Brooklyn Rail, March 2023. https://brooklynrail.org/2023/03/art/ISHMAEL-REED-with-Bob-Holman
  • Lucas, Julian. “The Yeehaw Papyrus,” The New York Review of Books, May 15, 2022.
  • Sabir, Wanda. “Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theater for the New City through Jan. 9, 2022.” San Francisco Bay View, Jan 5, 2022. https://sfbayview.com/2022/01/ishmael-reeds-the-slave-who-loved-caviar-a...
  • Ryan, Jed. “’The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theater for the New City: A Review.”  Lavender After Dark, January 3, 2022. http://nytheatre-wire.com/bhb21121t.htm
  • Bennett, Beate Hein. “The Meteoric Rise and Demise of an Artist: ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ by Ishmael Reed.” New York Theatre Wise, Dec. 23, 2021. http://nytheatre-wire.com/bhb21121t.htm
  • Lucas, Julian. “The Trickster Rebel of American Letters.” The New Yorker, July 26, 2021.
  • Rimondi, Giorgio. L’invasione Degli Afronati. Milano: Shake Edizioni, 2021.
  • Jacobs, Ron. “Calling the Kettle White: Ishmael Reed Unbound.” CounterPunch, October 18, 2019.
  • Wang, Liya. Ishmael Reed and Multiculturalism. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2018.
  • Zeng, Yanyu. “Interview with Ishmael Reed.” Journal of Foreign Languages & Cultures, Hunan Normal University, Volume 1/No.1/December 2017. 
  • McAloon, Jonathan. “Mumbo Jumbo: a dazzling classic finally gets the recognition it deserves.” The Guardian, August 1, 2017.
  • Ludwig, Sämi, editor. American Multiculturalism in Context: View from at Home and Abroad. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, see pages 131-202 for articles by Wendy Hayes-Jones, Stephen Casmier, Yuqing Lin and Jiri Salamoun, includes Reed's address, "Jazz Musicians as Pioneer Multi-Culturalists, the Co-Optation of Them and the Reason Jazz Survives."
  • Paladin, Nicola and Giogio Rimondi, editors. una bussola per l'infosfera con Ishmael Reed tra musica e letteratura. Milano: Agenzia X, 2017. Includes "Da Willert Park Courts a Palazzo Leoni Montanari," an address by Ishmael Reed, pages 27-39
  • Rimondi, Giorgio, editor. il grande incantatore per Ishmael Reed. Milan, Italy: Agenzia X, 2016. (Includes essays on Reed's work by Italian scholars and translations of ten Reed poems.)
  • Lin, Yuqing. A Study on Ishmael Reed’s Neo-HooDoo Multiculturalism. Beijing: Intellectual Property Publishing House, 2015. 
  • Lin, Yuqing.“The Writing Politics of Multicultural Literature--An Interview withh Ishmael Reed." New Perspectives on World Literature, 2016.
  • Lin Yuqing.“Fight Media Hegemony with a Trickster’s Critique: Ishmael Reed’s Faction about O.J. and Media Lynching.”  The Project on the History of Black Writing:  http://projectbw.blogspot.com/2014/09/fight-media-hegemony-with-tricksters_65.html.
  • Wang, Liya. Postcolonial Narrative Studies. Foreign Literature Study. no. 4, 2014.
  • Ludwig, Sämi, editor. On the Aesthetic Legacy of Ishmael Reed: Contemporary Assessments. Huntington Beach, California: World Parade Books, 2012.
  • Zeng,* Yanyu.  “Identity Crisis and the Irony of Political Correctness in Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain”, Contemporary Foreign Literature, No. 2 pp. 79—87, 2012.
  • Zeng, Yanyu      “Neo Hoodooism and Historiography in Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada”, Contemporary Foreign Literature, No.4 pp. 92—99, 2010.
  • Sirmans, Franklin, editor. NeoHooDoo, Art for a Forgotten Faith. New Haven and London: Menil Foundation, Inc., 2008.  (Reed interview, 74-81)
  • Wang, Liya.  "Irony and Allegory in Ishmael Reed's Japanese by Spring". Foreign Literature Studies, No. 4. 2010.
  • Wang, Liya. “History and Allegory in Ishmael Reed's Fiction.” Foreign Literature Review, no. 4, 2010.
  • Lin, YuanFu. On Ishmael Reed’s Postmodernist Fictional Art of Parody. Xiamen, China: Xiamen University Press, 2008.
  • MvuyekurePierre-Damien with a preface by Jerome Klinkowitz. The “Dark Heathenism” of the American Novelist Ishmael ReedAfrican Voodoo as American Literary Hoodoo. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd., 2007.
  • Zeng, Yanyu. "Towards Postmodern Multiculturalism: A New Trend of African American and Jewish American Literature Viewed Through Ishmael Reed and Philip Roth."  Xiamen, China: Xiamen University Press, 2004; Purdue University: Philip Roth Studies, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp 70-73.
  • Williams, Dana A., ed. African American Humor, Irony and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2007.
  • Ebbeson, Jeffrey.  Postmodernism and its Others: the fiction of Ishmael Reed, Kathy Acker and Don DeLillo.  London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
  • Nishikawa, Kinohi. "Mumbo Jumbo." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Pages 1552–53.
  • Spaulding, A. Timothy. History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative.  Chapter 1: “The Conflation of Time in Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada and Octavia Butler’s Kindred,” pp. 25-60. Columbia: The Ohio State University Press, 2005.
  • Hume, Kathryn. American Dream American Nightmare: Fiction Since 1960. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
  • Dick, Bruce, editor, with the assistance of Pavel Zemliansky. The Critical Response to Ishmael Reed. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999.  (1997 telephone interview by Dick with Reed, 228-250)
  • Newton , Zachary  Adam. Facing Black and Jew: Literature as Public Space in Twentieth-Century America.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • Ludwig, Sämi.  “A Narratology of Free Voices.” African American Review, Vol. 32, No. 3, Fall, 1998.
  • McGee, Patrick. Ishmael Reed and the Ends of Race. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
  • Ludwig, Sämi.  Concrete Language: Intercultural Communication in Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” and Ishmael Reed’s “Mumbo Jumbo.”  Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, Cross Cultural Communication Vol. 2, 1996. Reissued in a print-on-demand edition by Born Publishers, 2015.
  • Dick, Bruce and Amritjit Singh, editors. Conversations with Ishmael Reed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995.
  • Joyce, Joyce A. "Falling Through the Minefield of Black Feminist Criticism: Ishmael Reed, A Case in Point," in Warriors, Conjurers and Priests: Defining African-centered Literary Criticism. Chicago: Third World Press, 1994.
  • Nazareth, Peter. In the Trickster Tradition: The Novels of Andrew Salkey, Francis Ebejar and Ishmael Reed. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Press, Ltd., 1994.
  • Spillers, Hortense J. “Changing the Letter: The Yokes, the Jokes of Discourse, or, Mrs. Stowe, Mr. Reed,” in Slavery and the Literary Imagination, edited by Deborah E. McDowell and Arnold Rampersad. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 25-61.
  • Martin, Reginald. Ishmael Reed & the New Black Aesthetic Critics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
  • Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
  • Fox, Robert Elliot. Conscientious Sorcerers: The Black Postmodernist Fiction of Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel Delany.  Greenwood Press, 1987.
  • Nazereth, Peter. “Heading Them Off at the Pass: The Fiction of Ishmael Reed.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 4, no. 2, 1984.
  • Fabre, Michel. “Postmodernist Rhetoric in Ishmael Reed’s Yellow Back Radio Broke Down.” The Afro-American Novel Since 1960. Editors: Peter Bruck and Wolfgang Karrer. Amsterdam: B.R. Gruner Publishing Co., 1982. 167-88.
  • Settle, Elizabeth A. and Thomas A. Settle. Ishmael Reed, a primary and secondary bibliography.  Boston:  G.K. Hall & Co., 1982.
  • O’Brien, John, editor. The Review of Contemporary Fiction Volume 4, Number 2, Summer, 1984. “Juan Goytisolo and Ishmael Reed Number” (Includes articles and interviews with Reed by Reginald Martin, Franco La Polla, Jerry H. Bryant, W.C. Bamberger, Joe Wexilmann, Peter Nazareth, James R. Lindroth, Geoffrey Green and Jack Byrne.)
  • McConnell, Frank. "Da Hoodoo is Put on America," in Black Fiction, New    Studies in the Afro-American Novel Since 1945, edited by A. Robert Lee.     New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980.   
  • Fabre, Michel. “Ishmael Reed’s The Free-Lance Pallbearers or the Dialectics of Shit.”  Obsidian 3.3 Winter 1977: 5-19.
  • Thomas, Lorenzo. “Two Crowns of Thoth: A Study of Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Last Days of Louisiana Red.’ In Obsidian 2: No. 3 (Winter, 1973), 5-25.