Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past. Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, this inventive, shape-shifting braid of stories exists far beyond the enclosures of official decrees. This is a timely, daring, virtuosic book by a young literary star. The stories are accompanied by black-and-white drawings—one at the start of each fiction—by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson.

woman from fine-print time, disclose to the world: the forecast of our noontime births outdoors; how I distrust every form of authority, chiefly my own astonishment this poisoned wish is why I love, I bow to deserts, these claychildren of forests everywhere I love the rain, this is no secret, I love the solar wind; hold their elliptical life in the wasteland of our third mouths where flowers are invisible and bones are sanded and amusing, and every heliopause cloud senses our head, how we astonish our memories vining where no shade is enough, since many who’ll feed me will refuse me their names, and good, who knows what bargains I would make with their meanings, more bundles of thyme . . . tournaments of family recipes with you at my question,