W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation by W.E.B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation Reviews

• 
  Joy

  Pro:
  * Intro that gives a strong argument for the graphic novel adaptation
  * Moments of impactful combination of text and illustration
  
  Con:
  * Tone of the intro is condescending in places
  * Too much academic/cerebral framing at the beginning of each section
  * Audience???
  
  Thank you to Pau Peart-Smith, Rutgers University Press, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  J Earl

  W.E.B Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation, art and adaptation by Paul Peart-Smith, is a wonderful presentation of the original with contextual intros for each section.
  
  One of the concerns whenever I see a graphic version of important books is how "true" to the original it will be. Admittedly I have been pleasantly surprised more often than not, and such is the case here. While selective, this is not, or at least doesn't appear to be, paraphrasing. So we have Du Bois' words with graphic images to illustrate the points being made.
  
  I think the introductions to each section help those coming to either the work or Du Bois for the first time understand the context within which he wrote and, perhaps more important, how it still speaks to us today.
  
  I highly recommend this whether for yourself or for a young reader as an introduction. I am a firm believer that the more senses we engage in any experience, the better, so a graphic interpretation can be enjoyed by everyone from young readers to scholars revisiting a text they may not have read in many years.
  
  Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
• 
  AlohaKarina

  This graphic novel is an excellent introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois. The students who might not otherwise have heard of him, or would hesitate to pick up his book, would be intrigued by this graphic novel representation. The first essay might be hard for middle schoolers to understand, but the eloquence of the wording, and the brilliance of the thoughts, would be perfect for high school. However, the Reconstruction essay and artwork is outstanding, and would be perfect for middle schoolers. I can easily see this book being used in both middle and high school classrooms with ease. Additionally, the graphic novel format would not be as scary to those kids who are less comfortable with books. This is excellent, and copies of it will become part of my classroom library for use in learning about reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureau in particular. Fabulous book. Thank you to NetGalley for the preview copy. No compensation has been provided nor will be accepted for this or any of my reviews.
• 
  Patrícia

  I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
  
  I decided to pick up this graphic novel adaptation because I was not yet familiar with the works of W. E. B. Du Bois but had great interest in be. My rating is in no way a reflection of his work.
  This was not a good start for me. This adaptation is very heavy, the tone is academic and the pages are very overfilled with both text and illustrations. I would much rather just read the original text, which I will.
• 
  Karrie Stewart

  I'm so glad this was turned in a graphic novel. It made it a lot eaiser for me to comprehened how important this book was for its time.
• 
  Greg

  After reading Black Reconstruction a few years ago, finding this randomly was a joy to feel like I got to know Du Bois better. Far more personal and emotional, beautifully illustrated.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  Paul Peart-Smith I see has mainly done art work in “erotic fantasy” and Lovecraft horror illustration. This is a rather different project, operating on a different plane, creating wider access to W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903), one of the key texts in African-American history. DuBois is one of the great thinkers in American history, period, and I highly recommend his original text, a collection of essays, engaging as it does with post-slavery America, and contending with other leading figures of the time such as Booker T. Washington and the Pan-Africanist minister Alexander Crummell. There’s also a move here to connect DuBois with sixties activism, particularly C.L.R. James, in 1968, and by implication, I suppose, current BLM struggles.
  
  The book is subtitled “A Graphic Interpretation," so it's not intended as a literal translation of the text, of course; there’s an academic introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway, and introductions to excerpted anecdotes throughout based on various chapters from DuBois’s classic, an afterword by editors Paul Buhle and Herb Boyd, and an appendix listing some sources. The artwork is really good, bringing to life the history DuBois narrates.
  
  Paul Buhle, the editor whose work I know on this project, is like me, a leftie of a certain age, a radical with lots of work on things I also love such as The Beats, Eugene Debs, Paul Robeson, Howard Zinn, and so on. One, on Johnny Appleseed, is illustrated by one of my fave alt-comixers, Noah Van Sciver, but as works of art and history all these books are just jam-packed with words, with information. Information dump, we call it now. They’re all more illustrated histories than comics works, where the images usually tell much of the story. It's not as if I ever think the artist and editor ever really collaborates together. Dense, crammed panels. That dramatic and beautiful and spare cover is evidence of what Peart-Smith can do, but the text overwhelms the images in many respects. No page really allows you to breathe.
  
  But the words of DuBois, his text, is what is being honored here, Buhle and Boyd contend! A conundrum, I agree. I love DuBois’s text and he’s crucially important for understanding American history and needs to be read today. I guess I think over all that this illustrated book can work as an accompaniment to the original text, or as a way into the text for first-timers, especially for readers that have a hard time visualizing the time and place (as many young readers do). A rich taste, shall we say, of images to help us “see” the text?
  
  The question I guess I have is about audience, as the intro and afterword seem to be directed to older student readers, which is fine, of course. Maybe illustrating and commenting on just one or two of his narrative essays might have been a better way to go? Not sure. This is ambitious, for sure. I hope the book does well, introducing DuBois’ work to millions of new readers.
  
  Thanks to Netgalley, Rutgers University Press and the authors for the advanced read!
• 
  Veronica

  Thank you Rutgers University Press and NetGalley for the access to the e-arc.
  
  Let me first tell you that I’m Swedish, the first time I remember hearing the name W.E.B. Du Bois was in 2022. I took note, I am someone who enjoys non-fiction but I always doubt my ability to properly understand non-fiction.
  
  My hopes when I started reading this was to give me an overview of the original work and get me to be brave enough to pick it up. It did just that and so much more. If I can afford it, this is one that I am planning on purchasing after publication.
  
  The prose is stunning, the art so very fitting to the content. I had to do quite a bit of googling to understand phrases and words but that is entirely on me (as I previously said, I’m Swedish and English is my second language.)
  
  The structure of having a good introduction and at the start of every chapter having a page giving you an idea of what the content will be for the following pages were very helpful to me.
  
  Some chapters feel like a documentation of history, but some are even more personal to Du Bois. I have been reading this over the span of 15 days and I honestly don’t know what I can say other than I have kept thinking about it every day since I started it.
  
  This give an overview and made me feel encouraged to read more.
  
  Also, the page of further reading at the end is one that I have saved for my future reading.
  
  CW: Racism, slavery, child death, death, hate crimes, slurs, classism, violence.
• 
  Jacqueline Nyathi

  I enjoyed this interpretation of Du Bois, which presents itself as a graphical one, but is in fact graphical snippets with short introductory or explanatory essays. This does make it rather less straightforward; I went into it thinking it would be a more accesible way to read Du Bois's book, but this is actually a more complicated way, and would therefore possibly be harder to access for young people. However, the images are striking and memorable, and the sections chosen for re-interpretation are powerful passages. It might just need a lot more application of the intellect to appreciate than one might have expected from the description.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and to Rutgers University Press for the ARC.
• 
  Melki

  A graphic version of
  The Souls of Black Folk?
  
  Well, I would have said this couldn't be done. Happy to be proven wrong by this fine book.
  
  
  Paul Peart-Smith's artwork is amazing - dark and brooding, disturbing, yet beautiful. His images provide a perfect compliment to the thought provoking text.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and Rutgers University Press for sharing this one.
• 
  Miroku Nemeth

  This was a surreal book both in writing and artistry. It's been probably two decades since I read the original, and revisiting in comic book form, and a truly artistically rendered and scholarly comic book form, was an experience, especially after a couple more decades of teaching and learning since I first read it as well. I didn't know this existed until about three weeks ago, and I do feel it's worth having in your library, right next to the graphic novels by David Walker on Frederick Douglass and The Black Panther Party, which I think are perhaps the best out there in the genre on Black history.
• 
  Sarah Bennett

  As someone who recently read the original book "The Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. Du Bois and rated it 5 stars, I found this graphic interpretation to be a great resource for students. It is a more accessible version of the original from which younger audiences or those who do not read a lot of nonfiction would still be able to learn and take away a lot of meaning. This would be great to pair with the original or for use on its own in middle and high school classrooms. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!
• 
  Susan Haines

  I had tried to read Du Bois before, but his large vocabulary and combination of scholarly and flowery style made it very difficult. Hurray for graphic novels! Even though the writing is still DuBois', the footnotes, introductions, historical context, and (of course) pictures were the support I needed to understand.
  I would recommend the book for high school age and older.
• 
  Shannon Grinnan

  I loved this graphic interpretation of this fantastic book. The artwork is stellar. I find the material necessary for all of us. Utilizing visual art makes it more accessible to a younger audience and its message. This is a classic from a scholar we should spend more time with.
• 
  Educator

  NetGalley ARC Educator 550974
  
  The words of W.E.B Du Bois presented in a way that appeals to children and adults alike. The focus is on his words and ideals. The graphics are good and provide pictorial representation of Mr. DuBois' words.
• 
  Josie

  A beautiful adaptation that added to the timeless quality of the original.
• 
  Ryan Miller

  I admire the vision it takes to conceive of this book as a graphic novel, as it doesn’t seem a natural fit for a graphical interpretation.
• 
  Kate

  I don't like the graphic interpretation of this book. I was overwhelmed on every page by text and illustrations. I've never read The Souls of Black Folk so I'm off to do that now.
• 
  Heather Jennings

  Having read The Souls of Black Folk several times, I can say that this graphic novel is a wonderful alternative format to the traditional text. The graphic novel opens with the announcement of DuBois’s death, which is a nice frame for the rest of the text. Scenes from the chapter after an introduction set a great historical context for the reader. The illustrations of “twoness” and double consciousness are a particularly strong highlight. The text uses the original language rather than trite contemporary colloquial substitutions. That is something that I appreciate greatly as the other seems to be a trend amongst publishers trying to modernize older texts, or thinking that it will somehow prove more engaging to younger readers (teenagers are quick to recognize it as pandering). The text provides a strong explanation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, one that would be fantastic even in excerpted in US History courses.
  
  My only sticking point is the cover, which seems a trivial complaint. The font is intriguing, but the color story is trying to evoke an earlier era. My fear is that the subdued design decision will cause this book to be easily overlooked, and it is one that is worthy of attention. Thank you NetGalley and Rutgers University Press for access to this ARC in exchange for a review.