''The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness'' is a 2012 book of literary and cultural criticism by Kevin Young. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. The book centers the figures the trickster in African-American (and thus, American) literary history from Phillis Wheatley through

Jay-Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one of ...

. Young argues that the act of lying—the counterfeit—forms an essential genre of self-making in the African-American literary and musical tradition. He rejects white critics’ preoccupation with “authenticity”, saying such criticism fails even before it begins to engage the work, by foreclosing the possibilities deceit opened in African-American stories.

References

American essay collections Graywolf Press books 2012 non-fiction books {{lit-essay-stub