Tomiwa Owolade

Both epic and intimate: The Love Songs of W.E. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, reviewed

A multigenerational saga traces the mixed heritage — black, white and Native American — of a single family from the Deep South

The young W.E.B. Du Bois, the black American intellectual referenced in Honorée Fannone Jeffers’s title. [Getty Images] 
issue 05 February 2022
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  • The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

    Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

    Fourth Estate, pp. 816, £20

To write a first novel of 800 pages is either supremely confident or crazy. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and the author of five poetry collections, now gives us The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, a multigenerational saga set over two centuries.

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