CHANTAL JAMES lives in Washington, D.C., and has been published across genres-as a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and book reviewer-in such venues as Catapult, Paste, Harvard's Transition, The Bitter Southerner, and more. James's honors include a Fulbright Fellowship in creative writing to Morocco and a finalist position for the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize from the North Carolina Literary Review in 2019.
None but the Righteous is an homage to postcolonial and Southern literature yet a singularly incandescent marvel. -Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners and A Kind of Freedom At once spiritual and earthly, balancing with deft what is metaphysical and what is flesh, James' None But the Righteous ensnares, haunts, and fulfills that ancient, human need for narrative in carefully chosen language. You'll fall right into this world. -Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat In the tradition of Toni Morrison's Beloved, None But the Righteous is a gripping ghost story, a fevered dream of a young man's quest for freedom and belonging in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Chantal James has written a gorgeous page-turner. -Devi S. Laskar, author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues and winner of the Crook's Corner Book Prize Masterfully lyrical and captivatingly atmospheric, None But the Righteous is a sweeping portrait of intersecting lives once buffeted by the winds of an apocalyptic hurricane, wandering toward the pull of belonging while simultaneously repulsed by it. Ham's journey to reclaim both his city and his own body is a story of epic proportions told by a fiercely talented writer. Chantal James is one to watch. -Zeyn Joukhadar, author of The Thirty Names of Night and The Map of Salt and Stars