Julian Lucas
@jcljules
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staff writer @newyorker // edits @cabinetmagazine & @thedialmag // jes’ grew carrier
Brooklyn, NY
Joined December 2008
I profiled Samuel R. Delany—sci-fi pioneer, gay radical, literary genius—for @NewYorker’s fiction issue
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Happy birthday to Ishmael Reed who once published a book with only negative blurbs
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Actually just walked naked into boyfriend’s work videoconference. I will face the cops at today’s protest knowing there is nothing left to fear.
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Moleskine is Italian. Leuchtturm is German. Apica is Japanese. Why do the former Axis powers dominate the fancy notebook industry?.
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After five years of write-errantry, I’m hanging up the freelance and riding with the phenomenal team at @NewYorker
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I went to see the wizard. Here’s my @newyorker profile of the legendary Ishmael Reed, who at 83 years old (“my second childhood”) is starting more trouble than ever
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I genuinely enjoyed #TheWomanKing and see why it’s being celebrated. But its regrettable script indefensibly portrays enslavers as abolitionist crusaders. My review in @NewYorker.
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RIP to James Mtume (right), a great musician and my dad’s bandmate / songwriting partner for many years. “Give It On Up” to an extraordinary life
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Kehinde Wiley is our culture’s court painter—and now, he’s building a kingdom. I followed the artist from Brussels to Dakar, where his lavish residency is only the beginning of an ambitious pan-African project. My profile in this week’s @NewYorker
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Always disheartening when scholars come after writers for practicing criticism without a license. I may work outside the groves of academe, but I’ve studied restitution for years. I’ve even read Dr. Araujo’s work.
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Can’t get over the fact that France has dictionary editors who wear little green suits and carry swords and call themselves “immortals”
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Lupita Nyong’o (who was supposed to co-star) left the project after making a short documentary on the Agojie/Amazons for @SmithsonianChan. She cried after interviewing the granddaughter of a Yoruba woman they trafficked
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Mati Diop is back with “Dahomey,” an extraordinary documentary on art restitution narrated by a statue. In my profile @NewYorker, we discuss homecomings, the misrepresentation of migrants, and why she didn’t end up directing “The Woman King”
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Still thinking about the man who replied to my piece on “distraction-free” writing tech with a four-page letter extolling fountain pens and his unplugged life in rural Maine. My favorite hater—no contest
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Yoko Tawada writes in German and Japanese and believes that “even one’s mother tongue is a translation.” I reviewed her latest—a witty fable about the last living speakers of Japanese—in this week’s @NewYorker
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“Something old and nasty is reviving. the officials of Olivar permitted their town to be taken over, bought out, privatized” — Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
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I wrote about Dorothy Ashby, one of my all-time favorite musicians, who brought the harp into jazz. Her first six albums have just been rereleased with liner notes by @ShannonEffinger
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My favorite is “unlike other young black novelists whose work I did praise…” from Irving Howe (who also chastised Ralph Ellison for not being Richard Wright).
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I wholeheartedly agree that more women should be reviewing history books in mainstream publications. But it’s very strange to ding a black male critic for reviewing a white woman’s great new book about African art. on the grounds of identity.
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Did you “escape from slavery” on a childhood field trip? Millions of kids have. In this week’s @newyorker, here’s my story on Underground Railroad Reënactments and the black nationalist educator who loosed them upon America. Buckle up!
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Dahomey’s fascinating history isn’t reducible to slavery, and they could have made a movie celebrating the Agojie/Amazons that didn’t focus on the trade. Instead, they made a freedom fable that relies on presumed audience ignorance of the underlying facts
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The world’s little magazine is on the scene! Proud to be a small part of @thedialmag whose first issue—with a focus on reproductive rights around the world, and a wonderful interview between Annie Ernaux and Céline Sciamma—is out today🥚🎊
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“I think it’s just about not having a lot of fear.” Fantastic piece on my brilliant, endlessly determined sister @likaluca’s new job @PantheonBooks and diverse publishing’s hard climb
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How did African sculpture find its way from looted colonies and primitivist collectors to the artists of the Harlem Renaissance? Wrote about Isaac Julien’s new installation @the_barnes for @newyorker
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Wrote about the endlessly resourceful Percival Everett and his new novel “The Trees”—a harrowing/hilarious thriller about the legacy of lynching—for this week’s @NewYorker .
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I wrote about Teju Cole’s beautiful new novel “Tremor,” a meditation on art and ethics that strives to reconcile the inwardness of autofiction with photography’s drive to capture the world
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My profile of El Anatsui, whose greatness goes far beyond his famous bottle-cap sculptures, in this week’s @NewYorker
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Reggie Lucas, a luminous man I was blessed to call my father, left us this morning in the city where he was born. Guitarist, producer, writer of love songs, and the irreplaceable heart of his family, he will always be my teacher and my guide. His warm spirit will never leave us.
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Happy birthday to W.E.B. Du Bois, known to Zora Neale Hurston as “Dr. Dubious” and George Schuyler as “Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard” (pictured here magnificently unbothered in Ghana)
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I wrote about the extraordinary landscapes of Norco, an adventure game from @roboticgeo that captures Louisiana’s “petroleum blues”.
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Why can’t museums figure out how to exhibit video games? I consider MOMA’s recent attempt alongside a history of others—and wonder whether virtual worlds can be reconciled with the white cube.
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I don’t understand what wine merchants are saying but I appreciate it as spoken word poetry.
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I wrote about the virtuosically shameless Hervé Guibert, who never stopped telling on himself, his family, his lovers, his “lyrical ass,” or the disease that killed him
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I reviewed Maya Binyam’s captivating debut novel “Hangman,” a dissection of migration and homecoming whose narrator (maddeningly, thrillingly) refuses to fill in the blanks
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Nobody is funnier on black biracial matters than Danzy Senna, whose “Colored Television”—about a novelist in Hollywood who fails to cash in on her identity—is out today. I profiled her for @NewYorker
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I wrote about my quest for the perfect “focused” writing device—and yours. Did I file on time? No. But it’s about the journey, not the destination 🙃
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Fifty years ago, restitution advocates asked European museums to “liberate the black deities”—and their defeat offers important lessons for today’s movement. My review of Bénédicte Savoy’s “Africa’s Struggle for its Art” is out @NewYorker
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This November in Louisiana, @DreadScottArt will reenact the largest slave revolt in US history. I profiled the artist and his co-conspirators for @VanityFair
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I baked a Mary Todd Lincoln cake with Cole Escola, who attacked my recipe and accused me of sabotage. My piece on their brilliantly deranged @ohmaryplay and their winding road to Broadway is out now @NewYorker
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Caught up with the legendary @angeliquekidjo for @NewYorker’s interviews issue. We talk about her new album, writing songs in six languages, climate justice, and much more .
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Sidney Poitier in Percival Everett’s “I Am Not Sidney Poitier.” RIP.
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NASA is a hard act to follow but I, too, have thoughts on Octavia E. Butler and perseverance
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“Hexes and jinxes, maledictions, imprecations, anathema, damnation, fukú.” My essay on curses and history in contemporary African literature—Jennifer Makumbi, Wayétu Moore, Léonora Miano, and Scholastique Mukasonga—is the cover of today’s @nytimesbooks
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“How the Word is Passed” is a powerful reckoning with American slavery remembrance — place by place and tourist by tourist. My review of @ClintSmithIII’s latest for @nytimesbooks
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Another great notebook from the former Axis powers. (Japanese company, German name.) Pocket sized and even has tiny laminated folders
Moleskine is Italian. Leuchtturm is German. Apica is Japanese. Why do the former Axis powers dominate the fancy notebook industry?.
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Huge congratulations to @mervatim!!Honored to be included in such a fantastic group of critics.
Congratulations to Merve Emre, the winner of the NBCC Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and to finalists Christoph Irmscher, Julian Lucas, Jeremy Lybarger, and Jennifer Wilson!.
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Urge to become the Pierre Menard of Sally Rooney (whom I’ve never read) reconstructing her novels verbatim from the million words of criticism I’ve consumed.
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If you go see #TheWomanKing chase it with Lupita Nyong’o’s excellent critical documentary on the Agojie:. “The role of fantasy is to create the heroes we cannot have in the real world. I think it’s also important to be aware of the truth.”
Lupita Nyong’o (who was supposed to co-star) left the project after making a short documentary on the Agojie/Amazons for @SmithsonianChan. She cried after interviewing the granddaughter of a Yoruba woman they trafficked
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Went on @newyorker radio hour to recommend two games I binged in Omicron isolation—@NoMansSky and the beautiful demo for @roboticgeo’s “Norco”—and to dress up my extraliterary vice with quotes from Derek Walcott
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How did African soldiers fare in the wars between their colonizers? My thoughts on Abdulrazak Gurnah—laureate of orphans, exiles, wicked uncles, and troubled homecomings—and his latest novel, “Afterlives,” in this week’s @NewYorker .
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Join me for a conversation on Baldwin’s “No Name in the Street” with a formidably brilliant trio — @imaniperry, @esglaude, and Hilton Als. We’ll discuss the great writer’s disillusionment with liberalism and maybe even his hatred of grits. Thursday at 7pm!
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Always proud of sister @likaluca but watching her organize so many talented people so quickly was inspiring. Black freedom looks like knowing how to rally the troops!.
Not possible without @KieseLaymon. Not possible without @levarburton. Not possible without @namwalien. Not possible without @AngelaFlournoy. Not possible without @JasonReynolds83. Not possible without @DhyanaTaylor. Not possible without @jcljules.
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My interview with all-time great @angeliquekidjo is out tomorrow in @NewYorker’s first digital issue. Here are some favorite clips to get you ready . I’ll start with the iconic music video for “Agolo” (1994), which featured orishas decades before “Lemonade”
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Releasing my Ishmael Reed profile procrastination playlist as ✨ bonus content ✨
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“A Keene poem is a democracy of others.” Great @chen_ken essay on @jstheater’s new collection “Punks”
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Fellow writers! I’m working on a piece about niche writing tools (e-ink tablets, “distraction-free” word processors, whimsical neo-typewriters, etc.) and would love to speak with those who use them. Send me a DM if you are so inclined.
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Cowpokes and Hoodoos! A new edition of Ishmael Reed’s “Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down” — with an intro by yours truly — is now out from @Dalkey_Archive 🤠
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Spent an afternoon at MOMA with Giancarlo Esposito, screen legend, who is back today as Moff Gideon in #TheMandalorian. We talked about everything from his Broadway childhood to becoming one of our premiere villains—and what’s coming next
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Reading Chester Himes’s detective fiction and will now be referring to all alcoholic drinks as “ruckus-juice”.
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“For no one had yet written of this landscape / that it was possible.”. Derek Walcott, born ninety-one years ago today
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@SorayaMcDonald I actually think that one’s from a positive review he excerpted to make sound negative 💀.
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What does it sound like when Benedictine monks meet African instruments? Wrote about Senegal’s “Gregorian Griots” and their celestial strings @NewYorker
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Lost my dad a year ago today. This man loved and taught me more than I could ever measure. Here we are in his studio, where he built me a computer so I could “work” beside him like Mini-Me (or, as he called me, “too-quick-to-click”). Nothing made me happier. Love you forever, dad
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Many thanks to Henry Finder for editorial wisdom (and a dream assignment) and to the intrepid @IshlshIsh for uncovering facts in checking that even Chip didn’t know.
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Wrote about Marilyn Nance’s extraordinary photos from FESTAC ‘77, the largest pan-African gathering of the twentieth century. Her new book with @RemiOnabanjo, “Last Day in Lagos” is a one-of-a-kind family album of nations
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Don’t miss it! Having watched my brilliant sister @likaluca kill it online since the days of MySpace, there’s nobody better prepared to throw a virtual literary awards show. Couldn’t be prouder of her incredible run at @nationalbook
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“There are more Baldwin impersonators than Elvis impersonators. he’s got everyone out here writing letters to their nephews.” — Ishmael Reed at the @Center4BlackLit.
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@IshlshIsh I would also be remiss not to thank @asaseresin, who introduced me to Delany’s work shortly after I came out in college, and Christopher Alessandrini for love, encouragement, brilliant edits, and accompanying me to Philly to meet Chip 💜.
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Wrote about Mathias Énard and one very angsty Michelangelo’s trip to Turkey. My review of “Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants” is out in @NewYorker
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I spoke to the incomparable Scholastique @Mukasonga about Rwanda, the colonial archive, filming “Our Lady of the Nile,” and her newly translated story collection “Igifu” (@archipelagobks) for @TheWhiteReview
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Spoke to @SmithsonianSec Lonnie G. Bunch III—who is dredging up slave ships, building two new museums, and trying to stay above the culture wars—for @NewYorker’s Interviews Issue.
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Boyfriend unearthed my old Pokémon card collection and texted to tell me that it’s shit.
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Can’t remember the last time I read new fiction as alive and disturbingly beautiful as @fffmelchor’s “Hurricane Season.” I reviewed it for @nytimesbooks
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Spoke to Danzy Senna about “Colored Television,” the novelist’s plight in Hollywood, and reasons to reclaim the word “mulatto” for @NewYorker Radio Hour. (More to come…).
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My follower count has entered the long nineteenth century. This account is now a real-time historical strategy game. do your part to advance our Civilization.
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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a master at anatomizing American theater—and exploding its conventions. I followed the playwright to his Broadway debut, “Appropriate,” and an exclusive first look at his stage adaptation of Prince’s “Purple Rain” ☔️
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I’ve also never bought the argument that this kind of critique is actually responsible for the decline in reading “Great Books.” The great hate-readers of the Western Canon have done more for it — and read it with more sensitivity — than many of its straightforward defenders.
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“Cultural institutions. must commit to racial justice through material change. We are coming to collect our freedoms.”. Proud to be part of @OurJuneteenth from Black Artists for Freedom #BlackAFF #ImagineBlackFreedom
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