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This Elegance

Brief Description
Interweaving the sacred and the erotic, This Elegance engages with visual arts through the concept of sacra conversazione ("sacred conversation"), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine communion across time and space. Here, artists, thinkers, and pop icons commune in a similar sacred dialogue—Kathleen Collins,... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3999
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Releases 18th June 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "This Elegance" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Interweaving the sacred and the erotic, This Elegance engages with visual arts through the concept of sacra conversazione ("sacred conversation"), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine communion across time and space. Here, artists, thinkers, and pop icons commune in a similar sacred dialogue—Kathleen Collins, Andre Leon Talley, Richmond Barthe, Lyle Ashton Harris, Juan de Pareja, Janelle Monáe, Symone, and others appear as guiding spirits and creative kin.

For a Black, queer person so often dislocated from time and place, pleasure becomes an act of resistance—a grounding in the now. This Elegance is a love song—an offering to Black artistry, a tribute to visionary lives, and a testament to the power of beauty in even our most precarious moments.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781960145949

Publisher: BOA Editions, Limited

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 18 June 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: BOA Editions, Limited

Illustration: Illustrations

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 228.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 85

About the Author

Derrick Austin is the author of Tenderness (BOA Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, finalist for a Golden Poppy Award, and a Lambda Literary Award; Trouble the Water (BOA, 2016) winner of the A. Poulin Jr, Poetry Prize, finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, Thom Gunn Award, Lambda Literary Award, and more. Austin lives in New York, NY.

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