The Archive Talks Back: Eight Books That Wrest Humanity From the Record

Genre-bending literature has greatly inspired the author's work, leading to the release of "O Mother," a memoir published by McSweeney’s on September 1. This book incorporates diagnostic materials found after her mother's death, along with personal notes, arrest records, and a baby book intended to be opened posthumously. The author believes the language of bureaucracy often speaks for marginalized individuals, and her book aims to reclaim humanity from this language.

Matthew James Weigel, a Dene/Métis writer, presents "Whitemud Walking," a work that delves into treaty documents, land scrip records, and his grandmother's enfranchisement file. Weigel uses these materials as a foundation to explore his obligations to the land and his relationships with all beings.

Anne Carson's "Nox" is a unique elegy, composed of fragments, poems, family photos, torn letters, and stamps. The book is designed to hold Carson's grief for her late brother. Carson's approach to manifesting her grief resonates deeply with the author, as they relate to the process of sorting through the printed memories of a loved one.

Saidiya Hartman's "Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments" offers a critical examination of case files, court records, and photographs used to surveil and criminalize Black women during the early 20th century in Philadelphia and New York. Through her practice of "critical fabulation," Hartman imagines the interior lives of these women, refusing the flattening effect of the archive that recorded them.

Finally, M. NourbeSe Philip's "Zong!" is a powerful book-length poem constructed entirely from the language of the Gregson v. Gilbert case. This one-page legal document from 1783 records the disposal of enslaved Africans for insurance money. Philip transforms the legal language into an ancestral evocation, scattering it across the page in a deeply moving act of art and prayer.