By Sade Collier, Fall 2024 intern

 

To celebrate National Author’s Day, we wanted to highlight the stellar work of authors who recently published debut books here at The New Press. Check out these six titles from bold new voices that elucidate the meaning of justice-driven publishing.  

 

 

American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration by Benjamin Weber  

 

“American Purgatory will forever change how we understand the rise of mass incarceration. It will forever change how we understand this country.”—Clint Smith, bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America 

 

 

Historian Benjamin Weber examines in American Purgatory how prisons in the United States fuel American imperialism. For readers of The New Jim Crow, American Purgatory has received praise from outlets such as Kirkus Reviews, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and a starred review from Publishers Weekly, who called it “an eye-opening and fresh perspective.” 

 

You can read an excerpt of American Purgatory here.  

 

 

 

The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Petra Molnar

 

“An incisive and terrifying look at how militarism, security, and AI create a dystopian present at borders.”—Reece Jones, author of Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States 

 

 

 

Migration and human rights scholar Petra Molnar illuminates the violence inflicted by deployed experimental surveillance technologies at borders around the globe in The Walls Have Eyes. She reveals how the unregulated usage of artificial intelligence created a lucrative market for defense contractors and tech start-ups to further criminalize human migration. Publishers Weekly calls The Walls Have Eyes a “grave wake-up call.”  

 

You can find a digital project on The Walls Have Eyes here.  

 

 

 

Silver Repetition: A Novel by Lily Wang 

 

“This is a book of tenderness—compassionate, sore, seeking. All is displacement and the complicated longing it ignites.”—Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces

 

Lily Wang is a Shanghai-born Canadian poet who brings tender language to their debut coming-of-age novel about the articulation of tight-knit bonds through fragmentation. They have received praise for the complexity and metaphorical predilection of Silver Repetition from outlets such as Kirkus Reviews (“when the metaphorical language lands successfully it is a triumph”) and Publishers Weekly (a “pensive debut novel”). 

 

You can read an excerpt of Silver Repetition here.  

 

 

 

Intertwined: Women, Nature, and Climate Justice by Rebecca Kormos  

 

“Superbly researched, providing a survey of the history and present state of inequality, Intertwined also has the compelling power of personal narrative—it is outstanding.”—Ashley Judd, MPA, humanitarian, writer, actor, and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador 

 

 

National Geographic Explorer and environmental feminist Rebecca Kormos uses Intertwined to argue that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and must be empowered for the climate justice movement to succeed. Intertwined has been uplifted by renowned humanitarians and climate activists.  

 

You can read an excerpt of Intertwined here.  

 

 

Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal by Melissa B. Jacoby 

 

“Unjust Debts throws open the doors and windows to the bankruptcy system so readers can see for themselves how this law works and doesn’t work for the real people it so profoundly affects.”—Beth Macy, New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick and Raising Lazarus

 

Melissa B. Jacoby’s debut book Unjust Debts was named a Best Summer Book in Economics by the Financial Times. A legal scholar and expert in bankruptcy and debt, Jacoby writes that the bankruptcy system accentuates social and economic inequalities. She shows how corporate and state actors benefit from this system while ordinary people face the brunt of its woes. Unjust Debts received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, calling the book “an eye-opening look at the laws that undergird American inequality.”  

 

You can read an excerpt from Unjust Debts here.  

 

 

The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy by Natalie Foster  

 

“Across the pages of The Guarantee Natalie blends brilliance, warmth, and fierce focus to instill an optimistic confidence that America can choose a better path towards economic and racial justice. The world needs The Guarantee.”—Darrick Hamilton, director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School 

 

Natalie Foster, the president and co-founder of the Economic Security Project, imagines through The Guarantee a nation that fully invests in ordinary people rather than only supporting the private sector. This provocative book sketches out attainable measures that the government can take to benefit all in our collective economy. The Guarantee has received praise from politicians, legal scholars, and economists.  

 

You can read an excerpt of The Guarantee here.