The Parody of Postblackness in I Am Not Sidney Poitier and the End(s) of African American Literature.

Abstract

Analyzing Percival Everett's I Am Not Sidney Poitier as a multi-level parody, this essay argues that the novel not only parodies its protagonist's almost namesake's filmic oeuvre but also comically engages with Everett's own writing in general, and his novel Erasure in particular. Through detailed discussion of these various levels of parody, the essay teases out the ways in which postblack fiction offers a different, and decidedly non-mimetic, take on issues of race and racism than its predecessors in the African American literary tradition by complicating the relationship between fiction, fictional reality, and extra-textual reality.