Depictions of more difficult periods of Rembert's life are emotive and arresting.Īs I read Rembert's memoir, I think about all the ways humanity has worked out to make others suffer, to try and make others feel less than, and in some cases, deliver pain, and even death. The colors are vibrant, and movement is suggested in much of the way Rembert draws his characters. It's not every day that I check out a book from the library with such beautiful artwork.

Some of this is captured in his art, but his art is also about daily life and good times at church or out dancing. They are harrowing and heartbreaking memories. He recalls the ways in which Black people were made to suffer in the Jim Crow South. His mother gave him away as a baby to fifty-one-year-old, Lillian Rembert, Winfred's great aunt, who raised him as her son. One could say that Winfred Rembert was much like the leather, taking a beating, his body holding the imprint of his trauma and in the end, his soul delivering through his art, the pictures of his growing up years in Cuthbert, Georgia. You can carve it up and it will hold your picture.' Leather takes a beating, and whatever you do with it, it will hold its shape. 'My pictures are carved and painted on leather, using skills I learned in prison. An amazing story of Rembert's will to survive and make a living for his family. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 2022. Kelly, a philosophy professor at Tufts University. This book was a collaborative effort between Winfred Rembert and Erin I.

Chasing me to my grave book