Author Hanif Abdurraqib will join the University of Texas Press as editor of the publisher's American Music Series. In the new role, he will work alongside current series editors Jessica Hopper and Charles L. Hughes, acquiring books and working to help shape future directions for the series.
Abdurraquib, a MacArthur Fellow and a 2024 winner of a Windham-Campbell Prize, is the author, most recently, of There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension. He published his second work of nonfiction, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, with the University of Texas Press in 2019. He has since maintained a relationship with the publishing house, helping to bring Lynn Melnick's I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton to the press.
“It’s an honor to play a part in this brilliant and adventurous series, which was once a home to my own work, and has remained a place where long form music writing can flourish," Abdurraquib told PW. "I hope to honor the legacy of broad vision, curiosity, and rigor that has been vital to the engine of the series.”
