MONDAY, MAY 2 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C3
many things you can do, and
reminding people of the Holo-
caust is one.”
Passionate about history,
Rubenstein, whose reported net
worth is $3.8 billion, has given to
the National Archives, George
Washington’s Mount Vernon, the
Washington and Jefferson monu-‘Why didn’t the U.S. do more?
Why didn’t we intervene?’
“We are living in a similar
moment,” he continued, describ-
ing Russia’s aggression as “a
Holocaust without concentration
camps.” “Antisemitism is on the
rise in the world. People are say-
ing, ‘What can we do?' There arecaust still need to be taught, and
he feels a “moral obligation” to
help, he said.
“My ancestors came from
Ukraine; I’m obviously Jewish.
The Holocaust was an effort to
wipe out the European Jews,” he
said. “If you look at the Holocaust
and what happened, people say,from the anthology. Dreaming
helps characters find themselves
and envision new ways of being,
so they can proudly declare, as
Monáe sings in her song “Crazy,
Classic, Life,” “I am not Ameri-
ca’s nightmare, I am the Ameri-
can dream.”Stephanie Phillips is a London-
based music journalist and
musician, and the author of “Why
Solange Matters.”given more focus than others.
Just as you’re getting into “Time-
box” or “Save Changes,” the
section ends abruptly. Although
another 100 pages would not
have been possible, I would have
enjoyed delving deeper into the
premise, the lives and the
dreams of our main characters.
If anything, because showing
the many ways that dreaming
equals liberation for marginal-
ized people is a key takeawaytime travel storyline in which
Amber, whose late father gave
her a stone that can turn back
time, weighs the potential collat-
eral damage of meddling.
The Afrofuturist collection
feeds both Monáe’s fan base,
which will be hungry to delve
deeper into her work, and sci-fi
fans looking for another book in
the burgeoning Black specula-
tive fiction genre. One point to
note is that some stories areon Doc Young and his illegal
street remixes of Nevermind. At
night, she seeks out the thrill of
life beyond the rules and, after
meeting her transgender girl-
friend, Alethia 56934, at a dive
bar, Seshet begins to uncover
more of her past before she
became the “queen of the white
city.”
Even those who have escaped
the regimented world of New
Dawn remain haunted by the
horrors they witnessed, as evi-
denced in the story “Nevermind,”
co-written with Lore, which fol-
lows the rebellious Jane 57821,
who broke free from the regime
when she chose to remember.
Now hiding out in the Pynk
Hotel, an all-female commune in
the desert, Jane battles against
being taken over by memories of
her old life and the threat of
being found by New Dawn. The
women convene in groups called
“chords” and are portrayed as
radical, freethinking artists, just
like many of the other protago-
nists throughout the anthology.
In this world, artists, musicians,
painters and designers are the
physical embodiments of free-
dom and conversely are treated
with suspicion by the regime.
The elasticity of time is a
common theme throughout the
collection, as “Timebox” (co-
written by Ewing) considers how
unlimited time could aid women
of color who are so often the
most overworked and under-re-
sourced. Elsewhere, “Save
Changes” (co-written by Delga-
do) considers the well-troddenthe effect of the
all-seeing au-
thoritarian
state, New
Dawn.
In the era of
New Dawn, dif-
ference is a
crime. Tech-
nology is weap-
onized to
watch a citi-
zen’s every
move, and
memory is
treated as a
threat to the
new order and
wiped clean
with the drug Nevermind. The
allegories to our modern-day
fears of technology’s dominance
in our lives and the many ways
history is rewritten to benefit
those in power are evident
throughout the text. As with the
album “Dirty Computer,” which
Monáe told Rolling Stone was for
young, marginalized people,
“The Memory Librarian” is fixat-
ed on that same audience — a
reminder for those who have
ever been told they don’t fit in
that there’s a world beyond this
harsh one and a set of tools that
can help them get there.
In the first story, “The Memory
Librarian,” which Monáe co-
wrote with Johnson, we are in-
troduced to Seshet, the director
librarian of a city called Little
Delta and a rare Black face in the
upper echelons of New Dawn
who presides over its authoritar-
ian regime by day, cracking downwith the award-winning “Moon-
light” and critically acclaimed
“Hidden Figures,” is no stranger
to this concept. Her Grammy-
nominated third album, the joy-
ously vibrant collection of pop
bangers “Dirty Computer,” was
accompanied by an “emotion
picture.” The Hugo Award-nomi-
nated short film brought to life
the fully formed world around
Monáe’s record, introducing au-
diences to a dystopian near-fu-
ture surveillance state where
queer people, people of color and
all who don’t conform are con-
sidered “dirty computers” and
hunted down to be corrected. It
is this world that Monáe builds
on in her first book, “The Memo-
ry Librarian: And Other Stories
of Dirty Computer,” a collection
of short stories that explore the
power of memory in liberation.
The collection is a collabora-
tion between Monáe and several
writers known for their work in
speculative fiction and science
fiction, including Yohanca Del-
gado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn
Johnson, Danny Lore and Sheree
Renée Thomas. By nature, an-
thology collections, with the ink
of so many different pens on
them, can feel incohesive and
messy. It is a credit to the editors
and Monáe’s strong vision that
the collection does not fall at that
first hurdle. If anything, the
varied voices play into the book’s
concept, dipping in and out of
different characters and world-
views to paint a larger picture of
BOOK WORLD FROM C1
Monáe’s first book feeds a f an base that’s hungry for more
KYLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Singer, rapper and actress J anelle Monáe has released her first book, “The Memory Librarian.”THE MEMORY
LIBRARIAN
And Other
Stories of Dirty
Computer
By Janelle Monáe
Harper Voyager.
336 pp. $28.99ments, the Library of Congress
and a host of exhibitions at multi-
ple Smithsonian museums. A $50
million gift from him, made in
2012, led to the Steven Holl-de-
signed expansion of the Kennedy
Center. Known as the Reach, it
opened in 2019.
He is the author of four books,
including “The American Experi-
ment: Dialogues on a Dream,”
published last year. As the host of
“The David Rubenstein Show:
Peer-to-Peer Conversations” on
Bloomberg TV and PBS, he has
interviewed luminaries of enter-
tainment, business and politics,
including television producer/
writer Shonda Rhimes, Supreme
Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer,
designer Diane von Furstenberg,
White House Chief of Staff Ron
Klain and actor Sylvester Stal-
lone.
Rubenstein is chairman of the
boards of the Kennedy Center,
National Gallery of Art, Economic
Club of Washington, D.C., and the
University of Chicago and serves
on at least eight others, including
the Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center, National Consti-
tution Center and Lincoln Center
for the Performing Arts.
This gift is one of the largest he
has made to institutions that he
hasn’t had a hand in governing.
Although he witnessed the Holo-
caust Museum’s creation and
gave the keynote speech at the
2018 National Tribute Dinner cel-
ebrating its 25th anniversary, he
has never served on its board.
Bloomfield said Rubenstein’s
gift aligns with his donations to
other cultural and historic or-
ganizations.
“He has such a stellar reputa-
tion for preserving humanity’s
heritage, and democracy and hu-
man achievement,” she said. “If
you care about the future of free-
dom, this museum reminds you
how fragile freedom is. It’s a nice
complement to his other gifts.”start to connect the dots and draw
links between events and people,
between papers, photographs
and oral testimony,” she said.
Rubenstein said the ongoing
conflict in Ukraine also motivat-
ed him to make the donation.
Russian atrocities in Ukraine
show that the lessons of the Holo-Eizenstat, a domestic policy ad-
viser to President Jimmy Carter
who was instrumental in forming
the commission that led to the
building of a national Holocaust
museum, which opened in 1993.
In January, President Biden
tapped Eizenstat to be chairman
of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Council, which acts as the mu-
seum’s board of trustees. Biden
also named Rubenstein’s long-
time business partner and Carlyle
Group senior partner and manag-
ing director Allan M. Holt as vice
chair.
The pair quickly appealed to
their old friend and colleague.
“When Allan and Stuart sug-
gested it, it was something I was
interested in,” Rubenstein said.
“It’s an area I care a lot about,
documentation and history.
“Maybe I made a mistake in not
doing something sooner. But this
opportunity came along, they
asked me and I’m happy to do it,”
Rubenstein added.
Holocaust Museum Director
Sara J. Bloomfield said the dona-
tion will advance the museum’s
scholarship, education programs
and exhibitions, all of which are
based on its collection. The insti-
tute includes almost 24,000 ob-
jects, 23,000 oral testimonies,
thousands of hours of historic
film, more than 110 million pages
of archival documents, and 200
million digital images and photo-
graphs. The items come from
every country in Europe, as well
as Argentina, China and other
countries around the world and
represent the perspectives of sur-
vivors, eyewitnesses, victims, sol-
diers and others.
The money will help to digitize
the collection, making the ma-
terial accessible to scholars
around the world and unlocking
untold stories, Bloomfield said.
“When you digitize, you can
RUBENSTEIN FROM C1
Large donation will help Holocaust Memorial Museum digitize its collection
ANDRÉ CHUNG FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Holocaust Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield said the recent gift
will help advance the museum’s scholarship.UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, COURTESY OF ANONYMOUS DONOR
SS officer Karl Hoecker, left, relaxes at a retreat in Poland in 1944.UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM COLLECTION, GIFT OF ANTHONY ACEVEDO
A Red Cross armband worn by 20-year-old Anthony Acevedo is also
part of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s collection. The
collection i ncludes almost 24,000 objects, 23,000 oral testimonies,
thousands of hours of historic film, more than 110 million pages of
archival documents, and 200 million digital images and photos.MUSIC-CHAMBER
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