266. Hanif Abdurraqib: Reflections on Basketball, Life, and Home

Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t.

In his new book, There’s Always This Year, Abdurraqib tells his story of a lifelong love of the game with a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, woven together with intimate, personal storytelling.

“Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”

No matter the subject — whether it’s basketball, music, or performance — Hanif Abdurraqib sends out a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. His most recent book, A Little Devil in America, was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named one of the books of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.