Books by Kola Boof  

Nile River Woman (Poems, Feb. 10, 2004)  / Long Train to the Redeeming Sin-Stories About African Women (April 6, 2004)

 Flesh and the Devil: A Novel (May 11, 2004)  /   Diary of a Lost Girl (2007)

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Boof Banned in Anacostia

A Letter  from Kola "Naima" Boof 

Read this carefully:

I was booked to appear on August 28th at the Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C.-- just a block and a half from where I grew up.

 Mysteriously today...the Museum informs me that they can't host my event because they "forgot" that they can't sell books on the Museum property (although they just had a major book event last month and have Edwidge Danticat coming soon).

From a black woman who works for the Museum, I have learned however that what has happened is . . . people from the media began phoning the museum and complaining that hosting Kola Boof could be "dangerous" and that my word lacks "credibility".  As well, several important black men complained that I don't represent the D.C. community well and that I'm a slut, a fraud and a clown.  One of those men...is a high ranking official in the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Sudanese Liberation Movement, another one is a respected local newspaper editor.

I feel so enraged...and of course...devastated that people will do anything to destroy me (and lie on me) and suppress my work...for reasons of which I truly have no understanding of . . . whatsoever.

At this moment, I just want to commit suicide.

It seems that no matter how many times the media has now proven my story (those brave few that would report it) . . . there is a very powerful contingent of people who greatly fear me and do not want me to exist. 

You would think that I was the most powerful woman since Eve and that my 3 books that are translated to English and released in America were Holy Scripture.

I really am beginning to hate these motherfuckers in America.  But my birth name is "Naima"—the one who is victorious.

Kola Boof