Published in 2018
258 pages
Morgan Jenkins is an author, journalist, editor, and professor based in Manhattan.
Her debut essay collection, This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America was a New York Times bestseller and longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
Her short form work on race and gender, pop culture, feminism, and literature has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and ELLE, among many others.
She graduated with her Bachelor’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MFA in Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars.
A former columnist and associate editor at Catapult and teaching fellow at Bennington College, Jerkins is the Senior Editor of ZORA magazine under Medium and the forthcoming Guest Picador Professor at Leipzig University.
Jerkins currently teaches at Columbia University’s MFA program in nonfiction and Catapult, and she lives in Harlem.
What is this book about?
From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins’ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today—perfect for fans of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists.
Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.
