National Network for Equitable Library Service

Eagerly awaited debut fiction from one of Canada's most exciting and admired young writers. A daring and inventive reimagining of the infamous set of laws, the "Code Noir," that once governed Black lives. Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art: a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple and ingenious: it is modeled on the infamous real-life "Code Noir," a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. In other words, the Code that contained and restricted the activities of Black people in the Caribbean. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine short, linked fictions that present vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments of Black life as it really existed and still exists, winding in and around, over and under the official decrees, refusing to be contained or "ruled." Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from fantasy to historical fiction, this loosely linked stream of 59 irrepressible stories comments on, underscores, undermines, mocks, breaks and redefines the Code's intent. An original, timely, culturally daring, virtuoso performance by a rising literary star.