Abstract

In this chapter, I engage with the unaligned insurrectionist ethics of Marlon James’ The Book of Night Women (2009), a novel that shows the many modes of insurrection—linguistic, physical, psychological, and spiritual—as necessary, complicated, and inevitable responses to racism, enslavement, matriarchy, and patriarchy. I use Leonard Harris and Jacoby Carter’s explication of insurrectionism—a philosophy aimed at the complete eradication of systems of oppression and the achievement of universal liberation—and Lee McBride III’s core tenets of the ethics to analyze the novel. Ultimately, I conclude that no society can overcome past or present oppressive systems without first fully exploring and, yes, reimagining the events, subjectivities, and voices of the past, especially, perhaps, those of insurrectionist ethicists to imagine, shape, and achieve a better society for all.