Aberjhani
Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
About the Author
Image credit: Some members of the "Civil War Savannah Book Series" team standing on the steps of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah, Georgia (Spring 2010). Pictured from left to right are: photographer Cindy Wallace, author Barry Sheehy, contributing author Vaughnette Goode-Walker, editor Aberjhani, and graphics artist Scott Newman. The first book in the series, "Savannah, Immortal City," has become a regional best seller. (photo by Steve Wallace)
Series
Works by Aberjhani
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration: On leadership and the fate of freedom in America 2 copies, 1 review
Songbirds and Roses (Kindle eBook edition): The Unusual Life Story of an Unusual Poem (2025) 2 copies, 1 review
Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind: Adventures and Misadventures in Literary Savannah (2020) 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Aberjhani
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Savannah State University
Eckerd College
Macalester College
Temple University
New College of California
U.S. Dept of Defense Information School (show all 7)
U.S.A.F. School of Equal Opportunity and Social Sciences - Occupations
- author
editor
poet
publishing consultant
writer
artist (show all 7)
Documentarian - Organizations
- Creative Thinkers International
Academy of American Poets
PEN American Center
Charter for Compassion - Awards and honors
- Named a LinkedIn Influencer (2014)
Recipient of Michael Jackson Tribute Portrait VIP Dot Award (2011)
Savannah Poet and Spoken Artist of the Year Award (2006)
New Jersey Notable Book Award (2005)
Savannah Literary Journal Best of Publication Award
Inducted into the Red Room Hall of Fame (2009) (show all 9)
Choice Academic Title Award (2004)
Thomas Jefferson Journalism Award
Freedom Foundation Bronze Medal Essay Award - Agent
- Pande Literary Management
- Short biography
- Savannah, Georgia native Aberjhani is a former editor for the U.S. Air Force and the Savannah Literary Journal as well as a member of PEN American Center and the Academy of American Poets. Although "Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World" (ISBN 0966235673) is his first novel, his previous books include "Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance" (Facts On File, with Sandra L. West) which won a Choice Academic Title Award and Best History Book Award; "The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois" (Kensington Books); "I Made My Boy Out of Poetry" (iUniverse/ Washington Publications); and "Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black" (BPSE Publishing). His most recent titles are ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love; The American Poet Who Went Home Again; and the often-quoted poetry collection THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS.In addition to previously-mentioned works, his editing credits include the Civil War Savannah Book Series (Savannah: Immortal City and Savannah: Brokers, Bankers and Bay Lane, Inside the Slave Trade) as well as academic texts on contemporary leadership.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Savannah, Georgia, USA
- Places of residence
- Savannah, Georgia, USA
Florida, USA
California, USA
Pennsylvania, USA
Alaska, USA
Minnesota, USA (show all 7)
UK - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
What I really want to give this short book is 4 1/2 stars. Love the focus on how strange events lead to connections between creative individuals and communities. Also feeling the sideline commentaries on how art and beauty are reasons not to give in to hopelessness during depressing times. That's something this author has written on before here he's coming at it from a very weird but good place. Also, feels like as much as the author reveals by the end of the book, he purposely holds back on show more some key points. show less
History by itself is not my biggest turn on when it comes to reading but I like biographies. I especially like the ones about people who survive all kinds of personal and social injustice and then make it big anyway. That’s why this is one of my favorite books, for the stories it tells about people who had everything going against them, mostly just because of the color of their skin, but managed to shine anyway… even if some of them did have to die first. Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn show more Brooks, W.E.B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and hundreds more from the Harlem Renaissance and Jazz Age are not just profiled in the book… they live in these pages.
The first time I checked this book out was when a group of us open mic poets decided to put on a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance. We couldn’t do it without learning more about the people and the times. The encyclopedia gave us more than we bargained for. It brought to life the writers, the musicians, the lovers, the poets, the artists, the leaders, really everything and everybody. The way they lived from the heart and turned their struggles into straight-up winning situations is a major example of pure excellence in living.
M/S25 show less
The first time I checked this book out was when a group of us open mic poets decided to put on a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance. We couldn’t do it without learning more about the people and the times. The encyclopedia gave us more than we bargained for. It brought to life the writers, the musicians, the lovers, the poets, the artists, the leaders, really everything and everybody. The way they lived from the heart and turned their struggles into straight-up winning situations is a major example of pure excellence in living.
M/S25 show less
I don't think the service which the Telfair Museums has rendered the world by creating the Five Decades Retrospective, and which Suzanne Jackson herself has done by living her vision all these years, can be overstated. We're at a tipping point in history where this artist’s visualized insights stand among some of the most valuable tools available for engaging in critical discourses of existential consequence and designing strategies for confronting some of our most urgent social and show more political challenges.
What Jackson and her editor Rachel Reese have accomplished with this book is extraordinary. In fact, the entire FIVE DECADES project is a major achievement, especially in the current era when women's voices are emerging in many exciting, beautiful, and powerful ways. The book is also a wonderful contribution to ongoing celebrations of the Harlem Renaissance centennial. show less
What Jackson and her editor Rachel Reese have accomplished with this book is extraordinary. In fact, the entire FIVE DECADES project is a major achievement, especially in the current era when women's voices are emerging in many exciting, beautiful, and powerful ways. The book is also a wonderful contribution to ongoing celebrations of the Harlem Renaissance centennial. show less
Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind : Adventures & Misadventures in Literary Savannah Kindle edition by Aberjhani
This eBook edition of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind was published as part of observances of the 100th anniversary of O'Connor's birth. There are several formatting issues with this edition but the essays remain among the most informative regarding shared by an African-American author born in Savannah, Georgia. That is significant because the book centers around the impact of 3 authors frequently associated with the city: O'Connor, James Alan McPherson, and John show more Berendt. In addition to the groundbreaking essays, this specific edition is also largely notable for the artwork introducing each of the major sections.
A sense of the book's text may be gleaned from the following comments posted with the paperback edition on AuthorsDen:
GREAT CLARITY AND A LOT OF HUMOR
“In this collection of essays, Aberjhani explores his relationship with three authors whose works and lives have influenced his; the other thing that is important is that they are all connected in some way to his birthplace, Savannah, Georgia. This book is […] not an autobiography, yet Aberjhani reproduces episodes from his own life with great clarity and a lot of humor. The journey through life which makes him a writer leads him away from Savannah but also back to it. In this, his odyssey mirrors that of some of the great authors whose lives have touched his.”
--Richard Van Holst Goodreads Author (for full review please visit here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3519731923?book_show_action=true&from_...
POSES UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS
Writing as a fellow Savannahian, African-American poet, editor, and artist Aberjhani shares his experience as an O’Connor reader. Writing in GREETING FLANNERY O’CONNOR AT THE BACK DOOR OF MY MIND, this independent scholar raises questions similar to those of Doreen Fowler’s psychological approach and in O’Donnell discussed here afterward. Here he contemplates:
“The questions I could not avoid asking—though I may or may not have had a right to—were these: In what way was O’Connor’s writings conditioning White people’s responses toward Black skin? Did they help identify a crisis of social injustice in need of correction because ignoring it was tantamount to endorsing the destruction of Black lives … . (138)
By posing such questions, Aberjhani provides a candid account of what it is like to be “haunted” by the voice of O’Connor.
Patricia Ann West (author of STILL WATER WORDS) from the essay “Ev’ry Shut Eye Ain’ Sleep: A Critical Race Awakening of Flannery O’Connor’s Artificial and Converged Characters in Crisis” show less
A sense of the book's text may be gleaned from the following comments posted with the paperback edition on AuthorsDen:
GREAT CLARITY AND A LOT OF HUMOR
“In this collection of essays, Aberjhani explores his relationship with three authors whose works and lives have influenced his; the other thing that is important is that they are all connected in some way to his birthplace, Savannah, Georgia. This book is […] not an autobiography, yet Aberjhani reproduces episodes from his own life with great clarity and a lot of humor. The journey through life which makes him a writer leads him away from Savannah but also back to it. In this, his odyssey mirrors that of some of the great authors whose lives have touched his.”
--Richard Van Holst Goodreads Author (for full review please visit here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3519731923?book_show_action=true&from_...
POSES UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS
Writing as a fellow Savannahian, African-American poet, editor, and artist Aberjhani shares his experience as an O’Connor reader. Writing in GREETING FLANNERY O’CONNOR AT THE BACK DOOR OF MY MIND, this independent scholar raises questions similar to those of Doreen Fowler’s psychological approach and in O’Donnell discussed here afterward. Here he contemplates:
“The questions I could not avoid asking—though I may or may not have had a right to—were these: In what way was O’Connor’s writings conditioning White people’s responses toward Black skin? Did they help identify a crisis of social injustice in need of correction because ignoring it was tantamount to endorsing the destruction of Black lives … . (138)
By posing such questions, Aberjhani provides a candid account of what it is like to be “haunted” by the voice of O’Connor.
Patricia Ann West (author of STILL WATER WORDS) from the essay “Ev’ry Shut Eye Ain’ Sleep: A Critical Race Awakening of Flannery O’Connor’s Artificial and Converged Characters in Crisis” show less
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 22
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 109
- Popularity
- #178,010
- Rating
- 4.6
- Reviews
- 21
- ISBNs
- 29
- Favorited
- 2
