In his acclaimed new book Fantasies of Nina Simone, Jordan Alexander Stein uses an archive of the Simone's performances, images and writings to examine the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist and icon, and her own fantasies about herself.

Since her death in 2003 Nina Simone has been the subject of an astonishing number of rereleased, remastered, and remixed albums and compilations as well as biographies, films, viral memes, samples and soundtracks.  Stein outlines how Simone gave voice to personal fantasies through releasing dozens of covers of her white male contemporaries. With her covers of George Harrison, the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan and others, Simone explored and claimed the power and perspective that come with race and gender privilege.

Looking at examples from Simone’s four-decade, genre-bending career – from songbook standards, jazz, and pop to folk, junkanoo, and reggae – and at her work’s many uptakes and afterlives, Stein mobilises the psychoanalytic concept of fantasy to build a black feminist history with and for this multifaceted performing artist.

Duke University Press, 320pp, 15cm s 23cm, illustrated paperback, 2024