Audiobooks by Rinaldo Walcott

The Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relation: 2022

"Four Alchemists. One book. A constellation of ideas. In November 2022, the first annual Alchemy Lecture took place at York University in Toronto, bringing four deep and agile writers from different geographies and disciplines into vibrant conversation on a topic of urgent relevance: humans and borders. Now, in these pages, that conversation is captured and expanded in insightful, passionate ways. Architect, artist, and urban theorist Dele Adeyemo (UK/Nigeria) calls attention to the complexity of Black infrastructures, questioning how "the environments that surround us condition the possibility of our being." Poet Natalie Diaz (US/Mojave/Akimel O'otham) writes: "Like story, migration is the sensual movement of knowledge," and asks, "What is the language we need to live right now?" Philosopher Nadia Yala Kisukidi (France) suggests there is no diasporic life "without the dynamics of fabulation, where we pass down, from generation to generation, the stories of our ancestors who walked barefoot for many months." And cultural theorist Rinaldo Walcott (Canada) asks us to consider inheritances beyond white supremacist logics: "What might it mean to live a life, if we can't risk desiring and working towards utopia?" As each Alchemist considers the legacies of anti-colonial struggle, the future of the planet, and the textures of Black and Indigenous life, their essays speak to each other in multiple ways, creating something startling and revelatory: a vision of the world as it is, and as it could be."

Dele Adeyemo, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Natalie Diaz, Rinaldo Walcott (Author), Angelique Lazarus, Christina Sharpe (Narrator)

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On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition

"From plantation rebellion to prison labour's super-exploitation, Walcott examines the relationship between policing and property. That a man can lose his life for passing a fake $20 bill when we know our economies are flush with fake money says something damning about the way we've organized society. Yet the intensity of the calls to abolish the police after George Floyd's death surprised almost everyone. What, exactly, does abolition mean? How did we get here? And what does property have to do with it? In On Property, Rinaldo Walcott explores the long shadow cast by slavery's afterlife and shows how present-day abolitionists continue the work of their forebears in service of an imaginative, creative philosophy that ensures freedom and equality for all. Thoughtful, wide-ranging, compassionate, and profound, On Property makes an urgent plea for a new ethics of care. Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country's greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors."

Rinaldo Walcott (Author), David Andrew Reid (Narrator)

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Black Like Who?: 20th anniversary edition

"Rinaldo Walcott's groundbreaking study of black culture in Canada, Black Like Who?, caused an uproar upon its publication. With its incisive readings of hip-hop, film, literature, social unrest, sports, music, and electronic media, Walcott's book not only assesses the role of black Canadians in defining Canada, it also argues strenuously against any notion of an essentialist Canadian blackness. As erudite on the issue of American super-critic Henry Louis Gates' blindness to black Canadian realities as he is on rap, Walcott's essays are thought-provoking and always controversial in the best sense of the word. They have added and continue to add immeasurably to public debate. Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country's greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors."

Rinaldo Walcott (Author), Nigel Williams (Narrator)

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