A TO Z follows two women, Annie (white) and Zafiya (Black and queer), through forty years of US history, and all of the letters of the alphabet.
In 1968, Annie, a college freshman, comes to tutor Zafiya in a juvenile detention center. But she learns more than she bargained for. Zafiya tells Annie she’s given birth and had a daughter taken away from her at the center, and charges Annie to find out what happened...
A TO Z follows two women, Annie (white) and Zafiya (Black and queer), through forty years of US history, and all of the letters of the alphabet.
In 1968, Annie, a college freshman, comes to tutor Zafiya in a juvenile detention center. But she learns more than she bargained for. Zafiya tells Annie she’s given birth and had a daughter taken away from her at the center, and charges Annie to find out what happened to her. Instead, Annie falls in love with Zafiya's activist brother, Tyrone, and winds up helping Zafiya escape.
Twenty-five years later, the two women meet again--Zafiya now the author of a much-praised memoir and Annie only recently emerging from life underground, where she fled after Tyrone’s murder. The two women struggle to understand what happened and to reconnect, but they massively confuse and disappoint one another.
Finally, in 2008, Annie, this time with some crucially important information, tries again to reconnect with Zafiya, who's made her own peace with the past.