Criticism
The First Books by Malik Wilson
October 15, 2025
In The First Books, Malik Wilson describes how the emergence of a readerly consolation became synonymous with his own hidden success, his quiet development. In a world of constantly appended information, books stood as something finally finished, a statement in the world - congruent, over, settled. Their worlds, the worlds of books, became a kind of fair trade and practice, something to do while waiting. As such, though they touched on fissures of pleasure and consent, deliverance and joy and context, books ultimately became ascribed as subtle wayfarers to the world itself, small elegies of comely lament, whose progenitors, whether known or unknown, speak.