Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good-nosed to bird?

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I'm going to be continuing my talk with Honoré Fanon Jeffers about her magnificent novel,

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Now, in the last conversation, we discussed many

political and historical issues, but this is a novel.

Honoré has done the remarkable job of insisting that sexuality of every kind, bisexuality,

homosexuality, heterosexuality, and even monasticality, be covered in this book.

Now, I know from many black friends, this is a real subject in the black community.

How do you go beyond the boundaries of heterosexuality into a world where everything is possible and exists. Can you speak

about this? Well, I feel like for me it was easy because it exists in black communities. I mean,

it's not like we don't have a full range of sexuality, a full range of gender.

And, you know, even when people are thinking about African culture, which on its face seems to be very cisgender and homophobic,

transphobic, etc. When, for example, we look at the Yoruba religion and we look at the Eurasia,

S.U.L. Iqbara. In many artistic depictions, S.U. is a dual-gendered figure.

Twins, a man and a woman. And that's not talked about a lot. And I feel like anytime you write about communities, you're going to

have to write about the full range. And in particular, if I was going to address issues of colorism,

I was going to have to address those issues too. When Ailey, your narrator, the narrator of the book,

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by my guest, Honor, A. Fennon Jeffers,

...