Emma Dabiri – Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture

Emma Dabiri can tell you the first time she chemically straightened her hair. She can describe the smell, the atmosphere of the salon, and her mix of emotions when she saw her normally kinky tresses fall down her shoulders.

But despite increasingly liberal world views, black hair continues to be erased, appropriated, and stigmatized to the point of taboo. Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, and into today’s Natural Hair Movement, exploring everything from women’s solidarity and friendship, to the criminalization of dreadlocks, to the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian’s braids.

Deeply researched and powerfully resonant, Twisted proves that far from being only hair, black hairstyling culture can be understood as an allegory for black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.

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Dabiri is in conversation with Tope Folarin, a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, D.C. Folarin won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013, and is the author of A Particular Kind of Black Man.

This program is part of DUBLIN VOICES, a collaboration between Politics and Prose Bookstore, the Embassy of Ireland, Solas Nua, and Global Irish Studies.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.’s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.
Produced by Tom Warren

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