Ash Sanders has created a text that feels like a love letter to a version of Chicago that exists only in memory, while simultaneously drafting blueprints for a Chicago that could exist in the future. It is a slim volume that packs a heavy emotional punch, demanding that we reconsider the boundaries between the real and the imagined.
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The central engine of Electric Arches is the "Monsters" section (and the speculative genre in general). Sanders employs what is often called "Afrofuturism" or "Black speculative fiction," but her approach is intimate rather than grandiose. She isn't writing about space empires; she is writing about the safety of Black girls. Ash Sanders has created a text that feels
In one of the most striking pieces, "The," the narrator describes a train car that detaches from the tracks to spirit Black women away to a safe haven, an "Other" place where they can heal from the microaggressions and macro-violences of the city. Another story imagines a "Department of Afro-Imagination," a bureaucratic yet magical entity that protects the neighborhood. Sanders employs what is often called "Afrofuturism" or
The collection explores the complexities of Black girlhood and womanhood in Chicago. Ewing utilizes a unique "multi-modal" approach, combining:
