Episode 127: Hanif Abdurraqib with Stuti Sharma

Written By Rachel Zucker
Hanif, a man with dark brown skin and close cropped hair with a beard and mustache, stands with his back against a shop window looking directly into the camera. He wears a long-sleeved orange T-shirt with a graphic black heart and words.

Hanif Abdurraqib is interviewed by guest-host Stuti Sharma. Hanif and Stuti discuss writing communities, traveling to US cities, and music as a vessel for connection. They also talk about cultivating literary friendships, vulnerability, and memory both in the context of loss and in the context of loving someone throughout many stages of life. The second part of this episode is an excerpt from Hanif’s reading at Smith College in Spring 2023, where he gives a preview of his newest book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension. 

Books by Hanif Abdurraqib:

Also Referenced:

Bios

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Hanif’s newest release, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House, 2024) is a poignant, personal reflection on basketball, life, and home and a New York Times bestseller. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.  His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. His book, A Little Devil In America (Random House, 2021) was a winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burn Prize, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pen/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award. In 2021, Abdurraqib was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2024 was named a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.


Stuti Sharma is a poet, stand up comic, writer, filmmaker, and cook. She was a 2023 Open TV Fellowship Finalist for her short film after Noname’s song “Bye Bye Baby” and a 2023-2024 Tin House Inaugural Reading Fellow and has been published in Mason Jar Press, the Chicago Reader, Hooligan Magazine, Sixty Inches From Center, South Side Weekly, and forthcoming in HarperCollins. She is of Indian heritage, born in Kenya, and grew up on Devon street in the West Ridge and in the south suburbs. She is moving to California and New York for a bit to work on her novel but will be in Chicago for her hour of stand up comedy at Chicago Art Department in December of 2024. She cooked at various pop ups and restaurants including a French wine bar in Chicago and likes to explore diasporic traditions of Kenyan and Indian cuisine in America. Follow @cyborgstuti for more information on upcoming shows, food pop ups, and projects.

Please fill out our Commonplace Community Survey!

In honor of this episode our charitable partner will donate $250 to the J.U.S.T., chosen by Hanif Abdurraqib

Support Commonplace as you fulfill your audiobook dreams! If prompted the promocode is “commonpod.”

Information and sign up for “Reading with Rachel”

Support Commonplace on Patreon

Rachel Zucker
Previous

KTCO Feed Drop: Hey, it’s Me
Next

Episode 126: D. A. Powell