Rion Amilcar Scott's first book, Insurrections, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. His work has been published in the Kenyon Review, the Rumpus, PANK, and Confrontation, among others. He lives and writes in Maryland.
"Bizarre, tender and brilliantly imagined, The World Doesn't
Require You isn't just one of the most inventive books of the year,
it's also one of the best."
*Michael Schaub, NPR.org*
"Scott’s Cross River has been compared to other authors’ imagined
places, from Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County to Jesmyn Ward’s Bois
Sauvage (and I would add Nisi Shawl’s Everfair, as well as Black
Panther’s Wakanda), but it’s completely his own, forged of deep
roots, racial conflict and humor so mordant you’ll do double
takes.... These stories range from satire (“The Electric Joy of
Service”) to fantasy (“Numbers”) to horror (“Rolling in My
Six-Fo’?”) and not one of them strikes a false note. There are
angry notes. Even, perhaps, hostile ones. But none that are
unwarranted. A few readers may be shocked by Scott’s use of
cultural epithets, but those are far from unnecessary. We have so
far to go and so little time to get there, Scott seems to say.
Maybe spending a few hours in Cross River will help build a bridge.
Or blow one up, if need be."
*Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post*
"Rion Amilcar Scott proves himself an impressive myth-slayer and
fable-maker... The World Doesn’t Require You reminds us that having
to fight racism has a strange way of distorting everything one
touches.... With two books under his belt, Scott seems to have
barely skimmed the surface of the many more characters and
conflicts he could explore in Cross River."
*Salamishah Tillet, New York Times Book Review*
"A rich, genre-splicing mix of alternate history, magical realism
and satire that interrogates issues of race, sexism and where both
meet here in the real world."
*Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times*
"We know Cross River, Maryland, the setting of Rion Amilcar Scott’s
stories, is fictional because it’s supposed to have been founded by
slaves who successfully overthrew their masters. We also know this
because God was resurrected there, which we learn from his progeny
in ‘David Sherman, the Last Son of God,’ and because in another
futuristic story, slave history is reenacted by cyborgs. Scott
joins a growing tradition of African-American authors fusing the
folksy dystopian humor of George Saunders with the charged satire
of Ishmael Reed and expands on it brilliantly."
*Boris Kachka, New York Magazine*
"A bold new talent emerges with this boundary-shattering collection
of linked stories set in fictional Cross County, Maryland, founded
by the leaders of America’s only successful slave uprising.
Characters range from robots to sons of God in these magical
realist stories about race, religion, and violence. Think of it as
Faulkner meets Asimov."
*Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire*
"Powerful and revelatory."
*Erin Keane, Salon*
"A bleak and beautiful collection of short stories.... Scott
demonstrates the skill and long-range vision of a writer we need
right now. The World Doesn’t Require You requires a commitment from
readers, one that will be greatly repaid in literary
satisfaction."
*Emily Gray Tedrowe, USA TODAY*
"You'll no doubt find yourself highlighting passages over and over
again, consistently marveling over the author's storytelling
genius."
*Quinn Keaney, Popsugar*
"Scott’s interweaving story collection covers generations and
defies genre restrictions in a series of wry, magically tinged
character studies. The book affirms Scott, who won awards for his
first collection Insurrection, as a major unique literary
talent."
*Entertainment Weekly*
"Scott makes his stories feel singular.... [The] high level of
energy and humor, which Scott maintains throughout, makes the
novella a standout.... He bends expectations throughout the book,
frequently demonstrating this idea from the aforementioned public
speaker: ‘Everything horrible is just a little bit ridiculous, and
vice versa.’ And despite how clear Scott is about this modus
operandi, he constantly surprises, pushing things just a little
further in either direction.... Though God may have forsaken [these
characters], Scott does not. The World Doesn’t Require You is full
of horrible, ridiculous people, but it’s full of grace, too."
*Bradley Babendir - A.V. Club*
"Rich and extraordinary.... Scott, whose 2016 debut collection,
Insurrections, introduced readers to Cross River, has created a
fictional mini-world so detailed that, for all its surreality, you
begin to feel you could draw it on a map. But what he’s also
tracing here is a history of oppression — and not just in the
slavery that Cross River’s 19th-century founders escaped with their
successful revolt, known as the Insurrection. The persistence of
racism in American culture is central, but other entrenched forms
of domination are here, too: the toxic hierarchies that humans,
even those fleeing their own subjugation, so dependably
replicate."
*Laura Collins-Hughes, Boston Globe*
"Rion Amilcar Scott doesn’t hold back or tiptoe around issues about
race. He’s the most courageous writer I know; and this collection
is an excellent example and significant achievement. He’s now made
his mark as a force to reckon with."
*Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Patsy*
"Scott’s signature blend of tenderness and world-weary
wise-cracking and magical realism buoys the reader with strength
and a deeply intelligent hope. You won’t find Cross River on any
map, but its people and their stories are real and solid and demand
to be heard."
*Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day*
"I've been a fan of Rion Amilcar Scott's for years, but I was
astonished by The World Does Not Require You, which seems a leap
into a blazing new level of brilliance: it is a wild, restless,
deeply intelligent collection of stories, each of which resists and
subverts the limits of categorization. What a beautiful book."
*Lauren Groff, author of Florida and Fates and Furies*
"Mischievous, relentlessly inventive stories whose interweaving
content swerves from down-home grit to dreamlike grotesque....
Mordantly bizarre and trenchantly observant, these stories stake
out fresh territory in the nation's literary landscape."
*Kirkus Reviews [starred review]*
"Scott’s bold and often outlandish imagination makes for stories
that may be difficult to define, but whose emotional authenticity
is never once in doubt."
*Publishers Weekly [starred review]*
"Each time I open to a passage I love, I think this man is a
national treasure of a writer… What brilliance between the
pages."
*Jacqueline Woodson, author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl
Dreaming*
"Reminiscent of classic isolated-world fantasies like The Martian
Chronicles (1950) and Kirinyaga (1998).... Scott’s imagery and
unique voice blend horror, satire, and magical realism into an
intoxicating brew."
*Lesley Williams - Booklist*
"Surreal, intertextual, and darkly comical stories... Rion Amilcar
Scott writes in the tradition of George Schuyler and Ishmael Reed
but with a distinctive wry, playful voice that is wholly his own.
With breathtaking cruelty and devastating humor, Scott adduces the
whole world in one community."
*Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored
People*
"The World Doesn't Require You is a wholly inventive, mesmerizing,
genre-bending whirlwind of a book. I am utterly blown away by Rion
Amilcar Scott's boundless talent and imagination."
*Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up*
"In the midst of a renaissance of African American fiction, Rion
Amilcar Scott's stories stand at the forefront of what's possible
in this vanguard. Funny, sad, and always moving, these stories
explore what it means to call a place like America home when it
treats you with indifference or terror. The people in these stories
are unforgettable, their lives recognizable, their voices, as
written by Scott, wholly original."
*Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman*
"Flat-out unputdownable. The fictional town of Cross River, MD sits
at the heart of this dazzling collection—home to water-women and a
wayward lecturer secretly dwelling in the basement of a university
building and the last son of god, to myth and wonder and sorrow.
With these innovative, refreshing, and altogether thrilling
stories, Rion Amilcar Scott once again shows his readers that he is
a blazingly original talent, a vital voice."
*Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel*
"This soaring collection firmly places Cross River within the canon
of American literature and confirms Scott as one of the most
unique, powerful writers of his generation. We are so lucky."
*Randa Jarrar, author of Him, Me, Muhammad Ali: Stories*
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