Son of Elsewhere

An enlightening and deliciously witty collection of essays on Blackness, faith, pop culture, and the challenges--and rewards--of finding one's way in the world, from a BuzzFeed editor and podcast host. "It took two stopovers and nineteen hours of total flying time for me to become Black. I left Khartoum as a popular and charming (and modest) preteen, and I landed in Canada with two new identities: immigrant, and Black." At twelve years old, Elamin Abdelmahmoud emigrated with his family from his native Sudan to Kingston, Ontario, arguably one of the most homogenous cities in North America. At the airport, he's handed his Blackness like a passport, and realizes that he needs to learn what this identity means in this new country. Like all teens, Elamin spent his adolescence trying to figure out who he was, but he had to do it while learning to balance a new racial identity and all the false assumptions that came with it. Elamin learned to fit in, and eventually became "every liberal white dad's favorite person in the room." But after many years spent trying on different identities, he now must face the parts of himself he's kept suppressed all this time. He asks, "what happens when those identities stage a jailbreak?" In his debut collection of essays, he gives full voice to each and every one of these conflicting identities. Whether he's reflecting on how The O.C. taught him about falling in love, why watching wrestling allowed him to reinvent himself, or what it was like being a Muslim teen in the aftermath of 9/11, Elamin explores how our experiences and our environments help us in the continuing task of defining who we truly are. With the perfect balance of relatable humor and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves and, most important, what we're still learning.