In this groundbreaking book Osmundo Pinho makes an important contribution to Black Studies transnationally through placing Afro-pessimism in conversation with "Ancestrality," an important theoretical concept emerging from the field of Black Studies in Brazil. In the book, Pinho argues that social death and ancestry coexist, are in tension, and are both transformations. In the case of Pinho's work, which some scholars have referred to as "Afro-optimism", the author both recognizes social death, but he also recognizes black life, lived in relation to ancestry, and offers a framework through which black liberation can be realized.