Edna Bonhomme

A courageous excavation of the deep wounds that racism and colonialism have left on Black people across borders, and an imaginative effort to care for oneself and one’s community in the wake.Born in a close-knit Haitian enclave in Miami, Edna Bonhomme was raised to fight for her community—at first for their rights as immigrants, and then as part of the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements. Later, as an immigrant in Berlin, she encountered species of racism and of resistance that were new and different in some ways but fueled by the same legacy of colonial power.With astute insight and immersive prose, Bonhomme outlines a personal and political history of life in the United States, Haiti, and Germany, discovering what it means to be Black at home and abroad. She unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism and explores how communities are resisting the weight of centuries of history.Whether thinking through debt, medical racism, art, or reparations, Tending to Our Wounds offers a case study on how to navigate between the past and the present, the individual and collective—identifying the tendrils of history in the everyday, and outlining a path to repair.

A History of the World in Six Plagues unveils a powerful and unsettling truth: epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. 'If everyone read Edna Bonhomme's incredible, humane, insightful book - and I hope they do - we might stand a chance' Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World'Poignant' Salon'Could not be more urgent' The BafflerIn this groundbreaking work, Bonhomme explores how six pivotal diseases - Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola and COVID-19 - have shaped the trajectory of human history. Through vivid storytelling and rigorous research, she reveals how pandemics have consistently widened the gaps in racial, economic and sociopolitical divides, from the slave ships of the Atlantic to today's fractured healthcare systems. How did a colonial obsession with sugar amplify the devastation of Cholera? Why did sleeping sickness become a weapon of empire in Tanzania? And how has COVID-19 magnified inequities in our modern, interconnected worl? onhomme's incisive analysis transforms our understanding of public health, not as a neutral force but as a stage where power, policy and prejudice collide. Urgent and illuminating, A History of the World in Six Plagues is not just a history of disease, it is a call to reimagine a more equitable future in the face of ongoing global health challenges. 'Fascinating and thought-provoking' Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History'Tender as it tackles some of the most stigmatized subjects of our time' Morgan Jenkins, author of Wandering in Strange Lands

'If everyone read Edna Bonhomme's incredible, humane, insightful book-and I hope they do-we might stand a chance' Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World'Fascinating and thought-provoking' Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History'Tender as it tackles some of the most stigmatized subjects of our time' Morgan Jenkins, author of Wandering in Strange LandsA History of the World in Six Plagues unveils a powerful and unsettling truth: epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. In this groundbreaking work, Bonhomme explores how six pivotal diseases - Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola and COVID-19 - have shaped the trajectory of human history. With vivid storytelling and rigorous research, she reveals how pandemics have consistently widened the gaps in racial, economic and sociopolitical divides, from the slave ships of the Atlantic to today's fractured healthcare systems. How did a colonial obsession with sugar amplify the devastation of Cholera? Why did sleeping sickness become a weapon of empire in Tanzania? And how has COVID-19 magnified inequities in our modern, interconnected worl? onhomme's incisive analysis transforms our understanding of public health, not as a neutral force but as a stage where power, policy and prejudice collide. Urgent and illuminating, A History of the World in Six Plagues is not just a history of disease - it is a call to reimagine a more equitable future in the face of ongoing global health challenges. 'This book tells the accounts of people who deserved better. It is also a story of redemption, and of the little child in all of us, curled up alone in a huge bed, without her parents, who wants to be healthy and free.'