Reading books by AoC

[etumukutenyak]

I've seen some interesting books suggested on LJ, for reading books about/by PoC, and I think I'll start with some of the books I have read that are not pure white.

"The Short Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz
"Red Azalea" by Anchee Min
(which reminds me of "Life and Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng, one of my all-time favorites. I must find it and re-read it.)
"Devil in a Blue Dress" (and other Easy Rawlins books) by Walter Moseley. My dad picked them up from the bookstores in Grand Central, and infected me.
Octavia Butler, in a stack of books ordered all at once, so I can't recall which ones are about what.


Others to be added once I retrieve them from the dusty vaults of memory. I am looking forward to reading Barbara Neely's "Blanche White" series, the first one of which I've ordered.

ETA: On the way home I realized I'd read a fair number of writings by African authors in my advanced French classes during high school. That's probably one reason why some international authors aren't better known in the US: if it has to be translated, it somehow loses appeal. Anyway, that's when I first read of the trickery of Anansi, the poetry of Senghor, and the short stories of several authors whose names escape me. I shall track them down.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Oscar Wao got more comments by white people, oddly, than any other book I've read recently. Mostly, I think, because I started reading it on a plane.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

It's an intense book, to be sure, and I enjoyed reading it even though my Spanish vocab is just about nonexistent. (I never complained about all the Russian words in those books, or the Chinese words in those books, so I certainly am not going to start now.)

What did you think of it?

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed it, and was amused by it. I had no trouble with the Spanish words, por supuesto, and I know the history that underlies it. It's a superb novel of the Caribbean emigrant experience, Santo Domingo variety.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I have all the Butler books and have read several of Mosley's.

[niterobin.livejournal.com]

Just to show my ignorance: Who or what are AoC and PoC? :-)

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Authors of Colour/People of Colour.

[niterobin.livejournal.com]

Oh right - thank you‼

In that case, I highly recomment Isabel Allende, from Chile.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, she's on my list to read. There's so many good authors and books out there that I can hardly read them all -- even I can't read everything, and I'm a natural speed-reader.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

She's not a person of colour, though.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

True, very true. I think she falls into that category by association since she's one of those people who writes in another language. Because, you know, all Spanish-speaking people are brown.

Oh, hey, reminded me of that book by the Navaho surgeon! Lori Arviso-Alvord, MD (http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=1957); I stumbled across her by looking at an NIH site on women in medicine.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

My white, Spanish mother's family would want a few words with you.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

My son's putative father's family was all white Spanish-speaking folks, which is one reason he has an excellent accent. (He surprises people with his accent -- you can see them doing doubletakes.) In any case, they'd have to take this up with the American public, and see if they can get other languages incorporated into daily American life.

[rant ON]
I am so tired of people complaining about "speaking English only" as if that were the magic ideal for assimilating into this country, and then also complaining that we can't get anywhere overseas because we don't have enough "native speakers" of a language to be able to understand the terrists on the phone. Let's see them learn another language well-enough to communicate daily in it, and then they can complain about all Those People, some of whom are my relatives.
[rant OFF]

Yes. Well.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Cognitive dissonance is one of the less endearing qualities of the human species.

[niterobin.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry - I misunderstood. My apologies.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

No problem.