The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" is a fantasy short story by P. Djèlí Clark, about George Washington's teeth. It was first published in Fireside Fiction in 2018.

Synopsis

Rather than being a single narrative, the story examines the lives of the nine enslaved people whose teeth were taken to produce dentures for George Washington — in a world where magic and sorcery are real.

Reception

Locus noted that the story "defeats (the) idea that there might be 'one true' slave narrative, that slaves would have all been this way or that way", and observed that the story is "deeply inform(ed)" by Clark's training as a historian.^[1]

Year	Award	Result	Ref.
2018	Nebula Award for Best Short Story	Won	[2]
2019	Hugo Award for Best Short Story	Finalist	[3]
	Locus Award for Best Short Story	Won	[4]
	Theodore Sturgeon Award	Shortlisted	[5]