Racebook - by Tochi Onyebuchi (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the author of Hugo and NAACP Image Award finalist Riot Baby, an original memoir in essays that interrogates how identities are shaped and informed in online spaces and how the relationship between race and the Internet has changed in his three decades online

When Tochi Onyebuchi realized that his acclaimed science fiction and fantasy storytelling career had been centrally preoccupied with race, it prompted him to consider his responsibilities as a Black writer in the Internet age. Excavating the Internet of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Racebook explores how the writer and public intellectual Onyebuchi is today, was formed in that crucible.

Beginning with the current moment when everything, including personal identity, is a matter of dispute, and tracing his online persona in reverse chronological order back to Web 1.0's promises of greater equality and a bright digital future, Onyebuchi deftly examines the evolution of internet culture and the ways that culture has shifted in the ensuing decades. From the ever-changing nature of personal writing and free expression, to gaming, manga, fandom, and virtual reality--Onyebuchi examines the internet alongside works of literature both classic and new, and asks if our vision for what is possible has really broadened. And given the inequities Black people are still subject to, on and off the page, does the Internet only amplify our failures of imagination?

A new, compelling investigation of race through the lens of the modern Internet age, and a profound intellectual journey in pursuit of community online, Onyebuchi argues for a liberation of the individual behind the code, ultimately asking "Is this a race book or is it not? Is it either-or? Can it be both-and? Can I?"

Review Quotes

Praise for Racebook:

"Poetic and insightful . . . This is a must-read."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Racebook's essays are filled with nostalgic gaming references, musings on the current state of the internet, social media follies, and a surprising amount of German. Onyebuchi uses his fascinating life story as the backbone for this book, and readers learn as much about his background as they do about how the internet has changed and grown. Recommended for readers who want to examine the internet as it was, is, and will be, and how one person's unique perspective can elucidate universal truths."--Booklist, starred review

"Wide-ranging . . . A trenchant essay collection about race and identity online . . . Onyebuchi's cultural vocabulary is impressive, weaving together references to, among others, Graham Greene, Nas, and Walter Mosley . . . this is a lively and astute read."--Kirkus Reviews

"Beginning with the adulation of Black cosplayers seizing physical and intellectual properties long coded as white spaces, [Onyebuchi] writes a memoir that contemplates his life online . . . There is personal history throughout, but the essays are global reflections on internet culture more than traditional memoir. Onyebuchi captures several universal moments of a generation growing up online but pushes the narrative further to encompass how it intersected with his offline world."--Library Journal

"We are in the best, most absolute trouble, y'all, because Tochi Onyebuchi writes as well as he understands the internet, which means he writes as well as humans run from accountable desire. Racebook is absolutely singular in the history of book-making, and the love shown to Black folks and our internet here is as textured as anything Morrison made. We are in trouble, the best, most uprooting trouble, and I am thankful."--Kiese Laymon, bestselling author of Long Division and Heavy

"A riotous history of the internet from a nostalgic fan and passionate critic. Tochi Onyebuchi knows that when you enter a world that turns friends into followers, and authenticity into performance, speaking the truth is the only way out. He does it beautifully in this memoir-in-essays, which looks at the pressure of data capitalism on our inner lives and future identities."--Laila Lalami, author of The Dream Hotel

"Starkly original, provocative and brilliantly executed, Racebook warrants our undivided attention. Onyebuchi is a sage observer of this fractured moment and among the internet's keenest interlocutors."--Jelani Cobb, author of Three or More is a Riot and New Yorker Staff Writer

"A love letter to the broken internet: Onyebuchi's prose glitters and his insights cut in this smart tour through the key junctures at which the internet's terrible promise and peril revealed themselves."--Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification and Red Team Blues

"A masterful (auto)biography of imaginative labor in the digital age, spanning his own family histories, Pokémon Go, the Internet's capacity for psychic injury, Palestine, multiplayer videogames, virtual reality, blogs, global instability and the online social movements they've birthed, Tochi Onyebuchi reveals just how thin the veil is between the lives we live IRL and our online worlds. In eleven prodigious essays, Racebook returns us to those early years of the Internet, where everything seemed possible: community, belonging, ways to survive and thrive. Or as he writes, "to take the Internet seriously, is to recognize the parts of it that don't hurt." An audit of the faces we project and the reflection the Internet draws of us, Onyebuchi offers a trenchant account of where we've been, alongside a roadmap of possibility for where we might go."--Hafizah Augustus Geter, author of The Black Period

Praise for Tochi Onyebuchi:

"Onyebuchi's voice work is magnificent, sharp and whipping."--New York Times, on Riot Baby

"Stunningly original, brutal, and electric. Onyebuchi's prose scorches."--R. F. Kuang, on Riot Baby

"Tochi Onyebuchi's searing prose is an emotional journey in every sentence."--Gizmodo on Goliath

About the Author

Tochi Onyebuchi is the Hugo and NAACP Image Award finalist and author of Goliath, Riot Baby, the Beasts Made of Night series, and the War Girls series. He was the writer on Marvel Comics' "Captain America: Symbol of Truth" series (2022-2023) and the Black Panther Legends run (2021-2022). He was also part of the writing team behind Activision's Call of Duty: Vanguard. His nonfiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He currently resides in Connecticut.