Black Friend: Essays

Black Friend: Essays

Ziwe Fumudoh

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

A collection of personal essays that grapples with Ziwe's (mis)understanding of identity, by comedy’s most iconic voice   Ziwe made a name for herself staring interviewees in the eye and asking, “How many Black friends do you have?” She is an expert at making people squirm by coming right out and asking the tough questions.    In  Black Friend , she turns her incisive perspective on the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and her own personal stories. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a Jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods, Ziwe raises difficult questions for comedic relief.


From the Forum

No posts yet

Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update

Recent Reviews

Your rating:

  • svenghou.ly
    Mar 09, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    0
    comments 0
    Reply
  • bubbleyum.jpg
    Mar 12, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    This was fine, but I wasn't too impressed. As a fellow black woman, a lot of what Ziwe discussed was relatable. However, each essay was unnecessarily long-winded. If the writing was a bit tighter and less meandering, each essay would have been more effective.

    Also the inordinate number of footnotes were a massive headache. It distracted me every time. And most of them were pointless one sentence jokes? Just put that in parentheses and move on omg. I also found some of the [REDACTED]s unnecessary. Why are you redacting the name of your prep school and university when you have a Wikipedia page? It didn't make sense to me.

    0
    comments 0
    Reply
  • ash23
    Apr 02, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    I was only marginally aware of Ziwe before picking this up and now I want to watch everything she’s ever done. She pulls no punches; this was so funny and insightful. And she uses footnotes for humour which is my favourite thing. 

    0
    comments 0
    Reply
  • View all reviews
    Community recs if you liked this book...