Noted novelists, poets, and essayists, including Samuel R. Delany, Min Jin Lee, Joy Harjo, and Zadie Smith, consider how we are shaped by the past.

Some of today’s most imaginative writers consider what it means to be made and fashioned by others.

It is rare now for people to stay where they were raised, and when we encounter one another–whether in person or, increasingly, online–it is usually in contexts that obscure if not outright hide details about our past. But even in moments of pure self-invention, we are always shaped by the past. InAncestors, some of today’s most imaginative writers consider what it means to be made and fashioned by others. Are we shaped by grandparents, family, the deep past, political forebears, inherited social and economic circumstances? Can we choose our family, or is blood always thicker? And looking forward, what will it mean to be ancestors ourselves, and how will our descendants remember us?

Contributors Bennet Bergman, Sam Bett, Tyree Daye, Diamond Forde, Duana Fullwiley, Jose B. Gonzalez, Racquel Goodison, Terrance Hayes, Day Heisinger-Nixon, Tyehimba Jess, Christina Knight, Emily Lordi, Vuyelwa Maluleke, Reginald McKnight, Cheswayo Mphanza, Achal Prabhala, Domenica Ruta, Metta Sama, Sonia Sanchez, Izumi Suzuki, Deborah Taffa, Kyoko Uchida, Ocean Vuong, Binyavanga Wainaina, Yeoh Jo-Ann, Felicia Zamora