Celebrating Black Women’s Writing

One great part of being a grown-up is that you can, if you want, educate yourself on everything you didn’t learn in school. This year I’ve been reading my way through the For Harriet blog’s list of the 100 books by Black women they believe everyone should read. After spending so much time with powerful fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, I have to say, it’s the perfect syllabus for the best class I never had.

There’s a point of entry in the list for every reading type and temperament, and many of the works are thematically linked, so you can pretty much jump in anywhere and learn a lot no matter where you start. Here are a few suggestions to inspire you.

photo courtesy of Getty Images.

Daughter: A Novel, asha bandele. Aya, a college student, is shot by a white police officer while out jogging,  in a hideous case of mistaken identity. Miriam, Aya’s mother, is left to cope not only with the current tragedy of losing her child, but the unhealed trauma of her past relationship with Aya’s father. As the story moves between present and past, we learn how carefree young women become cautious and hard, at the expense of their own ability to cherish the men they love and the children they bear. A timely, sobering pick that’s sure to spark spirited book club discussions. Available in print only.

32 Candles, Ernessa T. Carter. Davie’s favorite teen movie was Sixteen Candles, but unfortunately, she couldn’t get her own high school crush to give her the time of day. Years later, she runs into him again by chance, and sparks fly. Too bad she sort of forgets to tell him who she is, and that they already know each other, a decision that comes back to haunt her just when happiness is in her grasp. Solid chick lit about childhood dreams, adult deceptions, and — romance fans take note — hard-won happy endings. Available in print and as a digital audio book.

Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson. Ti-Jeanne lives with her grandmother, and has learned a wealth of healing lore from her. However, she’s going to have to learn some things she hadn’t counted on in order to face down the evil spirit that stalks Toronto. Heavy on Caribbean legend and lore, Hopkinson’s first novel is a gripping foray into dystopian speculative fiction (long before we started calling those things by those names) partially influenced by Derek Walcott’s play, Ti-Jean and his Brothers (which has been anthologized in various collections). A good beginning for teens and adults looking for heroines of color in their SF/F.* Available in print, digital audio, and — for you intrepid late adopters — book on cassette.

Sister Citizen, Melissa Harris-Perry. Of all the great non-fiction on this list, Harris-Perry’s stands out for its clear explanations of concepts that might be unfamiliar to you, as well of a history of images and events of which you might not be aware. Harris-Perry explains what obstacles have prevented Black women from fully participating in democracy, using statistics, stereotype analysis, political theory, anecdotes of women’s lived experience, and other tools to make her case. She also references some of the other non-fiction works mentioned in the For Harriet list, which may help you to decide where to go next in your learning journey. Available in print and as a digital audio book.

homegirls & handgrenades, Sonia Sanchez. You get the sense, reading this collection of poems, that what Sanchez really wants to do is take you by the hand and lead you through her universe, saying, “Look. Listen.” Her speakers often function as observer-outsiders in many of these poems, implying that the teacher often functions as the student, even when the teacher knows her subject very well. Poems like “Bubba” and “Traveling on an Amtrak Train Could Humanize You” are fine examples of this: Sanchez telling stories that have broadened her speakers’ minds, and, hopefully, our own. Poetry for people who think they aren’t ready for poetry, but are willing to give it a shot. Available in print only.

The list of 100 also contains the authors you’d expect to be there (Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, etc.), but I deliberately chose less familiar selections to demonstrate just how much depth and breadth we’re dealing with here. If you’re intrigued, I hope you’ll try one of these selections, or others from the list; maybe this is an area you’re familiar with already. If so, I hope you’ll suggest additional titles, and share your own reading experiences in the comments.

Leigh Anne

* This is a particular reading interest of mine so if you’re ever in the library, come find me and let’s talk about it. A great place to start your research is Bitch magazine’s series of blog posts on girls of color in dystopia, written by Victoria Law.

 

 

 

Up Late, Reading

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the words “yawn” and “coffee”! 

Lately I’ve been reading some truly gripping fiction, the kind of novels you simply can’t put down for an archaic, old-fashioned notion like “bedtime.” If you’ve ever tried to resist the power of a page-turner, you know that the temptation to finish “just one more chapter” frequently leads to bleary-eyed, yet satisfied, book-finishing, usually around 3 or 4 a.m. And while you may find yourself at a temporary disadvantage the next day, the satisfaction of having read an excellent story usually makes it all worthwhile.

Here are a few of the books that have recently kept me up late, reading:

Veracity, Laura Bynum. In the wake of a pandemic, the government places electronic implants in citizens’ necks and shocks anyone who utters forbidden words. Fueled by the mythic “Book of Noah,” a resistance group struggles to create a government where speech is truly free again. Caught between her lofty government position and her daughter’s freedom, Harper Adams decides to flee. A must-read for fans of dystopian sci-fi and freedom of speech.

Under the Dome, Stephen King. Those of you wondering whether or not it’s worth even beginning such a hefty novel can take comfort in King’s familiar style and delivery. Cut off from the rest of Maine by a mysterious, transparent dome, the people of Chester’s Mill begin to reveal their worst natures in ways that are all-too-plausible. King delivers a scathing commentary on the decline of both liberty and civility in American culture in the guise of a horror novel…or maybe it’s just a book about capricious aliens.  Either way, you won’t be able to put it down.

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins. Having burned through The Hunger Games in several hours, I picked up the sequel with high hopes. Happily, I was not disappointed. Katniss Everdeen gets to return home after the Hunger Games, but even though the cameras have been turned off, the real games are just beginning. As accustomed to dystopian fiction as I am, I was completely shocked by Katniss’s further adventures, and mightily impressed with Collins’s plot twists. Grab these now, immerse yourself in Katniss’s nightmare world, and then jump in line for the third installment, Mockingjay, which will be released on August 24, 2010.

House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski. Experimental fiction soars to new heights in this multi-layered novel about a mysterious house in Virginia, the documentary its owners made about it, the book about the documentary, and the diary of the young man who found the book. Confused yet? It gets better, as the physical text mirrors the narrative by playing with visual representations that frequently force the reader to flip back and forth, turn the book upside down, and engage in other contortions. Replete with footnotes, color-coded text conventions, poetry, madness, nightmare and heartbreak, this is truly the novel to end all novels (sorry, James).

One person’s meat being another person’s poison, what constitutes an up-all-night read for me might not be your cup of tea! When was the last time you had a close encounter with a book that simply wouldn’t let you sleep? Leave us a comment and let us know what kinds of books you simply can’t put down.

–Leigh Anne

Women Poet/Novelists

This month’s celebration of Women’s History got me thinking about some of my favorite women authors.   Three of my personal favorite contemporary women authors have all accomplished something that is relatively rare in the history of literature:  they have excelled equally in the areas of fiction and poetry.  These authors are Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, and Marge Piercy.

Atwood is, perhaps, most famous for her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which was adapted into a good, relatively faithful motion picture, much better than the screen adaptations of the dystopic worlds of 1984 and Brave New World.   Her series of linked short stories, Wilderness Tips, is as fine a short story collection as has been written in the last twenty years (you’ll find yourself asking: what’s with all the bog men, eh?), as is her most recent linked stories collection, Moral Disorder.  A series of novels by Erdrich chronicles a number of recurring characters of Ojibwe descent and their larger, extended families.  The award-winning Love Medicine is the best known; personally, the opening chapter of Beet Queen, in which two children at a county fair watch their mother disappear from their lives in a hot air balloon as it slowly recedes over the horizon, is forever burnt into my brain.    Her recent The Master Butchers Singing Club, which tells the story of how the German side of her family came to North Dakota to blend with the Ojibwe nation, is every bit as lyrical and moving as its predecessors.   Rounding out the trio, Piercy is a first rate novelist, diverse in subject matter and genre, writing detailed historical novels focusing on the roles of women (Gone to Soldiers,  City of Darkness, City of Light, and The Sex Wars), futuristic narratives (He, She, It, and Woman on the Edge of Time), and contemporary sagas (Braided Lives, Three Women and The Third Child), all with a strong feminist flavor, that rival the fiction of today’s best writers. 

Many novelists dabble in poetry; as many poets attempt to write novels, both with somewhat limited results.   Yet, somehow all three of these outstanding novelists also are excellent poets.  Atwood and Piercy have both won awards for their poetry and, though Erdrich has not won any major poetry awards, her work is among the best contemporary poetry has to offer.    The Poetry Foundation website, perhaps the best poetry site on the net, offers a generous archive of contemporary and classic poems.   Interesting selections of poems from all three can be found in their archives: Atwood, Erdrich, and Piercy.   Beyond the Poetry Foundation archive, if you’d like to get the flavor of Atwood’s work there is Selected Poems II and Morning in the Burned House.   Erdrich has two collections of poems: Jacklight and Baptism of Desire, both highly recommended.  Piercy has nearly as many poetry collections as novels, no small number in either case; Circles on the Water: Selected Poems is a good place to start.

-Don