A 2024 Publisher's Weekly best YA book of the year.
In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer – and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.
Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future. With candid prose and an unflinching lens towards truth and hope, George M. Johnson brings young adult readers an inspiring collection of biographies that will encourage teens today to be unabashed in their layered identities.
Ages 14 to 18.
"A triumph." Shelf Awareness, starred review
"Flamboyants is not merely a much-needed history lesson, and it’s certainly not standard biographical fare. Johnson puts these figures in conversation with each other and with the present, enriching each essay with personal anecdotes delivered in a witty, conversational tone, and with cultural criticism that draws a direct through line from the Harlem Renaissance to Black queer culture today... Flamboyants suggests that we must see those who came before us as whole people to have any hope of making sense of our present." —BookPage, starred review
"Johnson combines incisive prose commentary, skewering verse, and revealing memoir in this collection of abridged biographies of Harlem Renaissance–era Black queer luminaries.... Palmer combines background textures resembling subway maps and skyscrapers with canvas portraiture to produce graphic and hyperrealistic imagery that harkens to the Harlem Renaissance while maintaining contemporary appeal." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A sincere and beautifully illustrated ode to queer Black figures who shaped the Harlem Renaissance." —Kirkus
"Punctuated with vibrant paintings and expressive poetry...Through divulging details about how queerness affected their lives, Johnson paints pictures of important people who should serve as a beacon to Black queer people, as they do to the author." —Booklist
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