Black Legend

Reviews / Votes

'This book is a gem. Beautifully written, meticulously researched, it reaches across the borders of our hemisphere to help us think in complex and humane ways about race, the power of storytelling, and nocturnal life in Buenos Aires.' Jeremy Adelman, Princeton University 'Alberto uses the skills of a sleuth to recover the life of Buenos Aires's famed 'negro Raul' and those of a truly gifted historian to help us think not just about Blackness in Argentina but also about the very real power of stories in the lives of individuals, communities, and nations. A fascinating, beautiful work of history.' Ada Ferrer, New York University 'Black Legend is an extremely innovative book that brings together the best kind of historical work, weaving together life story and national myth with the writing of history itself. Through meticulous research, Paulina Alberto tells the life and afterlives of Black celebrity Raul Grigera, providing a deep analysis of the long-lasting effects of racial storytelling in Argentina's self-definition as a nation. Offering a counter narrative of Grigera's life, Alberto reminds us that a story well told can play as powerful a role in dismantling racism.' Keila Grinberg, author of A Black Jurist in a Slave Society 'Poignant and penetrating, Black Legend is a sensitive biography of one complex man and a multilayered history of a community, city, and country all vying to script Blackness in the turbulent twentieth century. A book as much about the power of stories in political culture as the deep and shadowed racial past of Argentina, Black Legend is a stunning achievement.' Tiya Miles, Harvard University and author of The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits 'More than a traditional biography, Black Legend is an exemplary blueprint on how historical work based on one subject can function simultaneously as a microscope that provides revelatory detail and minutiae, and as a telescope that offers a sweeping look at myriad dynamics within a society.' Jessica Graham, ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America '... the book is much more than a biography - it is historical revisionism at its best. ... a must-read for scholars of Afro-Argentine studies ...' Prisca Gayles, Journal of Latin American Studies 'Black Legend is an example of the potential in crossing social history, cultural history, and literature. Alberto has a privileged pen and an analytical acuity that have been put at the service of tracing and honoring the most denied social actors in Argentine history.' Magdalena Candioti, Hispanic American Historical Review