Fantasies of Nina Simone

Jordan Alexander Stein is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Fordham University and author of When Novels Were Books and Avidly Reads Theory.

• List of Illustrations  ixSomething  1Biography  31Covering  731972  113Obeah  117Audience  147Fantasies  177Something (Reprise)  223Acknowledgments  227Notes  233Selected Bibliography  275Index  299

“With thoughtful analysis and experimental form, Jordan Alexander Stein’s Fantasies of Nina Simone is a daring exploration of how and why Nina Simone had to invent herself and what has motivated us---her fans, fellow artists, and audience---to embrace her iconicity over time and invoke her as the ultimate signifier of our own political demands and desires today.” - Salamishah Tillet, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of (In Search of "The Color Purple": The Story of an American Masterpiece) “Jordan Alexander Stein uses meticulous research and a vast archive of Nina Simone’s recordings and performances to provide a novel approach to engaging with the life and work of an iconic figure. Offering unique insights, Stein advances conversations about how critics take Simone up as a figure and as an artist and how she fashioned herself through her music, writing, performance, and self-presentation. This groundbreaking book makes an important contribution to cultural studies, sound studies, and conversations about life writing.” - Soyica Diggs Colbert, author of (Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry) "For me the most interesting passages by far are those where the author engages with specific Simone recordings and makes them more interesting. Although I admire Simone and enjoy her music and its oblique relationship with jazz, I know only a handful of her recordings and was pleased to read astute comments on a great many unfamiliar ones." - Graham Colombé (Jazz Journal)