Breaking Bread

In this provocative and captivating dialogue, bell hooks and Cornel West come together to discuss the dilemmas, contradictions, and joys of Black intellectual life.

The two friends and comrades in struggle talk, argue, and disagree about everything from community to capitalism in a series of intimate conversations that range from playful to probing to revelatory. In evoking the act of breaking bread, the book calls upon the various traditions of sharing that take place in domestic, secular, and sacred life where people come together to give themselves, to nurture life, to renew their spirits, sustain their hopes, and to make a lived politics of revolutionary struggle an ongoing practice.

This 25th anniversary edition continues the dialogue with "In Solidarity," their 2016 conversation at the bell hooks Institute on racism, politics, popular culture and the contemporary Black experience.

bell hooks was a Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College. Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, she chose the lower case pen name bell hooks, based on the names of her mother and grandmother, to emphasize the importance of the substance of her writing as opposed to who she was. A writer and critic, hooks was the author of more than thirty books, many of which have focused on issues of social class, race, and gender. Among her many books are the feminist classic Ain't I a Woman, the dialogue Breaking Bread (with Cornel West), the children's book Happy to Be Nappy, the memoir Bone Black, and Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (The New Press). She lived in Berea, Kentucky.

Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has written over 20 books and edited 13, including Race Matters, Democracy Matters, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, Black Prophetic Fire, and Radical King. Dr. West is a frequent guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN, C-Span and Democracy Now.

• Publisher: ‎Routledge (November 15, 2016)
• Language: ‎English
• Paperback: ‎246 pages
• ISBN-13: ‎9781138218765
• Item Weight: ‎10.4 ounces
• Dimensions: ‎5.5 x 0.56 x 7.5 inches