“Even the apocalypse isn’t the end”: Emotional Numbness and the Reconstruction of Interpersonal Bonding in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black

Abstract

This essay examines the role of waste as a categorizing mechanism in the formation of storyworlds in two of the short stories featured in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black (2018), “The Era” and “Through the Flash.” These two stories “waste” is a category defined according to the internal rules that govern their respective storyworlds, and in this case it arguably takes inspiration from preexisting classifications that have shaped, and continue to shape, the Black experience in the US under (late) capitalism. Analyzing how the relation between emotions, interpersonal bonding, and waste is constructed in each story, the essay demonstrates that understanding the power of waste as a classifying device helps shed light on mechanisms of oppression, which could contribute to dismantling the resulting classifications as well.