In “The Rib King,” Hubbard deconstructs painful African American stereotypes and offers a fresh and searing critique on race, class, privilege, ambition, exploitation, and the seeds of rage in America. The intricately woven and historical novel is set in the early twentieth century and centers around the black servants of a down-on-its heels upper-class white family.
Hubbard is the author of “The Talented Ribkins,” which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, the Times Literary Supplement, Copper Nickel, and Callaloo. Born in Massachusetts and raised in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida, she lives in New Orleans.
Nicole Blades is a novelist, speaker, and freelance journalist who covers women’s health, race and culture, books and publishing and stories of reinvention for various national print and digital magazines. She lives in New England. She is the author of “Have You Met Nora?,” “The Thunder Beneath Us” and “Earth’s Waters.”
This event was recorded on January 27, 2021.