Afterword

Nathan Grant and Terry Rowden have been kind enough to send me the papers in this issue. I have read them over. There is much intelligence here and a great deal of work, as there is in their own organizing and realization of such a labor-intensive enterprise as a special issue of African American Review, with all the hindrances and hurdles that had to be overcome. But overcome them they did. I am honored, humbled, and incredibly fortunate to have, here, another chance to acknowledge to everyone involved: the gift of intelligent attention is the greatest gift a writer can receive.

One seeks for statement to mark the many special and unique things crowding this issue and enterprise—and, as happens so often, one ends with only the most traditional of responses to encompass the heights of entailed appropriateness:

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

—Samuel R. Delany, August 23^rd, 2015