Lecture Series: Conversations: Saeed Jones

Saeed Jones is an essential author as well as a powerful voice in the world of literary activism, and his writing often engages the questions and nuances of identity. He has shaped his platform into a tool for social awareness, breakthroughs and connections with his no-holds-barred personality and unforgettable voice.

Saeed Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up in Lewisville, Texas. His debut poetry collection, Prelude to Bruise, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was awarded the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. The collection also received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which described the book as, “a fever dream, something akin to magic.” NPR described Prelude as a “book seamed in smoke; it is a dance that invites you to admire the supple twist of its narrative spine; it is hard and glaring and brilliant.”

In 2019, Saeed released his highly anticipated memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives. As the New Yorker observed “his title carries an edge of social critique. To be black, gay, an American, the book suggests, is to fight for one’s life.” NPR raved “Jones’s voice and sensibility are so distinct that he turns one of the oldest of literary genres inside out and upside down.” The memoir won the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, a 2020 Lambda Literary Award, as well as a 2020 Stonewall Book Award.

Saeed’s latest, Alive at the End of the World, is a poetry collection published in fall 2022. According to Publisher’s Weekly, “This penetrating collection shows Jones at his poetic best,” and Library Journal hails the book as, “Yet another masterly work.”