Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss

Author:   Nnenna Freelon
Publisher:   Duke University Press
ISBN:  

9781478029113


Pages:   248
Publication Date:   21 October 2025
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss


Overview

Full Product Details

Author:   Nnenna Freelon
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.572kg
ISBN:  

9781478029113


ISBN 10:   1478029110
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   21 October 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

Prelude Rubato First Movement. ’Round Midnight Second Movement. Stolen Moments Third Movement. A Love Supreme Fourth Movement. Time Traveler Cadenza Acknowledgments Biography

Reviews

""Nnenna Freelon's resonant and skilled voice sings through this genre-bending, profoundly performative text. As she explores with passion and sorrow the multifaceted spaces of grief--a subject that becomes more and more a part of our national discourse--she has crafted a compelling, elegant, and extraordinary book.""--Karla F. C. Holloway, author of Gone Missing in Harlem: A Novel ""This deeply learned, uniquely beautiful book is full of brilliant insights into the deep philosophical and spiritual dimensions of grief and its relationship to creativity by one of our foremost artists. Nnenna Freelon's serious intellectual and artistic reflections search for the possibilities to be found in grief. Not in avoiding it, but in going there, living with and through, listening closely to it, and seeing anew through it.""--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays ""Beneath the Skin of Sorrow is a sensuous, subliminal, and sacred siren that embraces an intimate void reminding us all that those silenced in death become defiant choruses in the forest. Nnenna Freelon has woven a rich forest for the wailing of losses texturized by remembrances of joy. This text is a tender requiem for all the portals closed and all the portals reopened inside of her journey with grief. She acknowledges that her history is now on fire but her illuminating heart invites us to this new interior that looms with raging unapologetic truth.""--Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina Poet Laureate


“Nnenna Freelon’s resonant and skilled voice sings through this genre-bending, profoundly performative text. As she explores with passion and sorrow the multifaceted spaces of grief—a subject that becomes more and more a part of our national discourse—she has crafted a compelling, elegant, and extraordinary book.” - Karla F. C. Holloway, author of Gone Missing in Harlem: A Novel “This deeply learned, uniquely beautiful book is full of brilliant insights into the deep philosophical and spiritual dimensions of grief and its relationship to creativity by one of our foremost artists. Nnenna Freelon’s serious intellectual and artistic reflections search for the possibilities to be found in grief. Not in avoiding it, but in going there, living with and through, listening closely to it, and seeing anew through it.” - Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays “Beneath the Skin of Sorrow is a sensuous, subliminal, and sacred siren that embraces an intimate void reminding us all that those silenced in death become defiant choruses in the forest. Nnenna Freelon has woven a rich forest for the wailing of losses texturized by remembrances of joy. This text is a tender requiem for all the portals closed and all the portals reopened inside of her journey with grief. She acknowledges that her history is now on fire but her illuminating heart invites us to this new interior that looms with raging unapologetic truth.” - Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina Poet Laureate.


""Nnenna Freelon's resonant and skilled voice sings through this genre-bending, profoundly performative text. As she explores with passion and sorrow the multifaceted spaces of grief--a subject that becomes more and more a part of our national discourse--she has crafted a compelling, elegant, and extraordinary book.""--Karla F. C. Holloway, author of Gone Missing in Harlem: A Novel ""This deeply learned, uniquely beautiful book is full of brilliant insights into the deep philosophical and spiritual dimensions of grief and its relationship to creativity by one of our foremost artists. Nnenna Freelon's serious intellectual and artistic reflections search for the possibilities to be found in grief. Not in avoiding it, but in going there, living with and through, listening closely to it, and seeing anew through it.""--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: New and Selected Essays


Author Information

Nnenna Freelon is a celebrated jazz vocalist, composer, producer, and host of the award-winning podcast Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon. A seven-time Grammy award nominee, Freelon is a member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. She has released over twelve solo albums, most recently, Beneath the Skin on Origin Records. Freelon lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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