Zandria F. Robinson is a native Memphian, Arthur and Janice’s daughter, and Dasie, Bob, Celia, and Jack’s granddaughter. She is an ethnographer, cultural critic, and memoirist whose work explores race, gender, sound, and spirit in the U.S. South.
Robinson is the author of This Ain’t Chicago: Race, Class, and Regional Identity in the Post-Soul South, an ethnography of Black cultures in Memphis, and co-author of Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life. Her writing on race, place, and music, as well as her profiles of the living and the dead, can be found Rolling Stone, Scalawag, Believer, Oxford American, The New York Times Magazine, Glamour, and other places.
While at MacDowell, Robinson worked on a book-length memoir, Surely You’ll Begin the World, a two-sided telling of the deaths of three fathers: her daughter’s father, her mother’s father, and her own father. She also worked on the liner notes for DJ Dahi's debut album, Black Boy Alternative. She was recently awarded a competitive research leave from Georgetown University to continue work on the memoir.
Portrait by Joey Miller
