#Helon Habila

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Travelers: A Novel

By Helon Habila.

Design by Kelly Winton.

[bspoquemagazine]

24. Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin

Im September dreht sich in Berlin alles um die Literatur: Zehn Tage lang kann Mensch auf literarische Reise gehen und sich auf inspirierende Begegnungen mit Größen der Weltliteratur sowie zahlreiche Neuentdeckungen freuen. Das Festival richtet sich an ein lesebegeistertes Publikum und öffnet sich für alle, die den Dialog über die drängenden gesellschaftlichen und politischen Fragen unserer Zeit…

[memetaped]

waiting for an angel taken from the 2002 helon habila book.

the important thing is that you got away.

i see you are a smart kid.

do you have coke, or pepsi?

you learn ways of surviving.

go home. there’s a curfew on.

i’ll send someone to get it later.

anything can be bought here in prison, from marijuana to a gun.

for you time drags, for me it gallops.

that will make you sleep. you need the rest.

don’t allow these fools to drag you into this.

i just wanted to see you and maybe say sorry for the other day.

time for my siesta.

you like the book?

today is the last day of my life.

as you grow older, you’ll find life demanding you to make certain choices. some people choose the easy roads, some the hard ones.

one day, you too will have to stand up for something. and it’ll take you by surprise.

wait for me. i want to buy some cigarettes.

you can be as imaginative as you want, but stick to the general facts.

how can you be so unfeeling!

[whilereadingandwalking]

Oil on Water by Helon Habila is a compelling read depicting two journalists trying to find a kidnapped woman in the Nigerian Delta, an environment dominated and devastated by the impact of oil, plagued by violence and pollution. As Rufus, our protagonist, and Zaq, the disillusioned established journalist who accompanies him, search, they deal with lies and shadows, disease, soldiers, and militants. Occasionally I got a little lost in the nuances of the timeline due to the way Habila weaves the story in and out of the past, but overall this was a quick and interesting read, that shone slick with the effects of oil as Rufus stood witness.

[ekute-ile]

Book 15, 2020: 'Travellers' by Helon Habila.

Migrants. Connecting stories. Exile. Asylum. The Mediterranean sea. America. Libya. Somalia. Zambia. UK. Germany. Nigeria. Consequence. Fate. Hope. Home.

Weltanschauung!

[slayslut12345678910]

“But no, I told her, it was only my immigrant’s temperament, hoping for home and permanence in this new world, at the same time fearful of long-term entanglements and always hatching an exit plan.”

Travellers, Helon Habila

[tragedies-and-dreams]

Travellers by Helon Habila

Travellers by Helon Habila

“Are you traveling in Europe?” he asked. I caught the odd phrasing. Of course I was traveling in Europe, but I understood he meant something else; he wanted to know the nature of my relationship to Europe, if I was passing through or if I had a more permanent and legal claim to Europe. A black person’s relationship with Europe would always need qualification—he or she couldn’t simply be native…

[afroeditions]

Mariposa Fernandez

LITERARY QUEST: TENEMENT EDITION

May 3, 2017, 6:30 pm - 9pm

Tenement Museum, 103 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

Valerie Graves

PUSHING PAST GLASS CEILINGS

May 3, 2017, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St, New York, NY, 10002

Farah Jasmine Griffin

LITERARY QUEST: WESTBETH EDITION

May 4, 2017, 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Westbeth, 55 Bethune St, New York, NY 10014

Helon Habila

WOMEN AND WAR

May 3, 2017, 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

FORBIDDEN: TOO DESIROUS

May 3, 2017, 7:30 pm - 8:45 pm

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St, New York, NY 10012 

Naomi Jackson

GIRL-POWERED FICTION

May 2, 2017, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Shakespeare & Co, 939 Lexington Avenue, NY, NY 10065

LITERARY QUEST: TENEMENT EDITION

May 3, 2017, 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Tenement Museum, 103 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

Saeed Jones

QUEER REPRESENTATION AND THE MEDIA

May 2, 2017, 6:00 pm - 7:15 pm

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St, New York, NY 10012

INSISTENT TONGUES: QUEER WORLD VOICES

May 4, 2017, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

BAAD Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, 2474 Westchester Ave, Bronx, NY

Peter Kimani

IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION: AN AFRICAN DIASPORIC PERSPECTIVE

May 4, 2017, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE, CENTER FOR BLACK LITERATURE, 1650 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225

Renée Watson

BADASS WRITERS: POWER AND TRUTH

May 6, 2017, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Barnes and Noble Union Square, 33 E 17th St, New York, NY 10003

[beforeafterrobots]

Reverend Jatau

Look at the morning sunrise.

All dust and mist stains the colour of a bag of oranges for sale laid down on powder blue tarpaulin pock-marked with patience.

The mornings are quiet and you can hear the birds breathe and clear their throats and belt out mating calls that could seduce any human.

The mornings are as alone as you are.

Dreams, Miracles and Jazz

The book is too big to take with me. About the size of a bible length wise. But I lie I’ve taken it plenty places.

Those listicles you find on Twitter advise one have a book everywhere you go so any in-between time can be spent reading, not surfing Twitter for useless information.

I enjoy reading on the train. It helps me remember and think. You look up from a passage or a chapter and the whole world is quiet for long enough for you to search yourself for some mysterious answer. Follow a hunch down the rabbit hole. That kind of frivolity that brings a tear..

I am reading Akin Adesokan’s “Native Sun”, really enjoying it, so much my coffee goes cold and I have to nuke it back to life in the microwave. I haven’t finished the story. I don’t want to.

I remember he is an author I’ve vowed to look out for but besides a few sightings in the Chimurenga Chronic it has been slim pickings.

I follow him on Twitter but I don’t want to. He tweets like he doesn’t want to be followed.

So I down the warm coffee and take the book with me.

[wazafam]

By BY HELON HABILA from Books in the New York Times-https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/books/review/khalil-yasmina-khadra.html?partner=IFTTT With the novel “Khalil,” the former Algerian Army officer who writes as Yasmina Khadra examines the roots of radicalization. Inside the Mind of an Islamic Extremist New York Times

[gladiates]

175+ non-Western literature recommendations to diversify your academia, organized by continent + country

I love world literature, and I’ve been frustrated by the lack of representation of it in literature + academia communities on tumblr, so here are some recommendations. I haven’t read all of these myself yet, but the ones I have are excellent and the ones I haven’t come highly recommended from Goodreads and are on my to-read list! 

With the exception of anthologies of older works, all of these books were written before 2000 (some literally thousands of years earlier), since I’m less familiar with super contemporary literature. Also, I only included each writer once, though many of them have multiple amazing books. I’m sure there are plenty of incredible books I’m missing, so please feel free to add on to this list! And countries that aren’t included absolutely have a lot to offer as well--usually, it was just hard to find books available in English translation (which all of the ones below are.)

List below the cut (it’s my first post with a cut so let’s hope I do it right... and also warning that it’s super long)

ASIA:

Bangladesh:

Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1929)

China:

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (6th century BCE)

The Art of War by Sun Tzu (5th century BCE)

The Analects by Confucius (circa 5th-4th century BCE?)

The Book of Chuang Tzu by Zhuangzi (4th century BCE)

Mencius by Mencius (3rd century BCE)

The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets (2nd century AD)

Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu (written 8th century AD)

Poems of Wang Wei (8th century AD)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (14th century AD)

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling (1740)

Dream of the Red Chamber by Xueqin Cao (1791)

Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu (1809)

Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun (1918)

Mr Ma and Son by Lao She (1929)

Family by Ba Jin (1933)

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (1943)

A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy by Wing-Tsit Chan (1963)

Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (1987)

Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian (1989)

The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature edited by Yunte Huang (anthology, 2016)

India:

The Rig Vega (1500-1200 BCE)

The Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita (around 400 BCE but not known exactly. The Gita is part of the Mahabharata)

The Upanishads (REALLY wide date range)

The Dhammapada (3rd century BCE)

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nāgārjuna (2nd century AD)

The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kālidāsa (4th century AD)

The Way of the Bodhisattva by Santideva (700 AD)

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (1910)

Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar (1936)

The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru (1946)

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (1956) 

A Source Book in Indian Philosophy by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles Alexander Moore (1957)

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993)

Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present V: The Twentieth Century by Susie J. Tharu and K. Lalita (1993)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1995)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1996)

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence (anthology, 2011)

Indonesia:

The Weaverbirds by Y.B. Mangunwijaya (1981)

Iran:

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (11th century AD)

The Essential Rumi by Rumi (13th century AD)

The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (1936)

Savushun by Simin Daneshvar (1969)

My Uncle Napoleon by Iran Pezeshkzad (1973)

Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (1979)

Iraq:

Fifteen Iraqi Poets edited by Dunya Mikhail (published 2013 but the poems are 20th century)

Japan:

The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (9th-10th century AD)

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (1002 AD)

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (1008 AD)

The Tale of the Heike, unknown (12th century AD)

One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse (not sure of year)

Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenkō (1332)

Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki (1914)

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (1948)

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1948)

The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1948)

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1949)

Masks by Fumiko Enchi (1958)

The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (1962)

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe (1964)

Silence by Shūsaku Endō (1966)

Korea (written before the division into North/South):

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong (written 1795-1805)

Lebanon:

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf (1988)

Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury (1998)

Pakistan:

We Sinful Women: Contemporary Urdu Feminist Poetry (1991)

The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1991)

The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry edited by Raza Mir (2014)

Palestine:

Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani (1963)

Orientalism by Edward Said (1978)

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (1997)

Mural by Mahmoud Darwish (2000, which technically breaks my rule by a year but it’s great)

Philippines:

Noli Me Tángere by José Rizal (1887)

Saudi Arabia:

Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif (1984)

Sri Lanka:

Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai (1994)

Syria:

Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami (1989)

Taiwan:

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin (1996)

Turkey:

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (1998)

Vietnam:

Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hô Xuân Huong by Hô Xuân Huong (1801)

The Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du (1820)

Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (1988)

Miscellaneous Asia (country unclear or multiple current day countries):

The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 1800 BCE)

Myths from Mesopotamia translated by Stephanie Dailey

The Arabian Nights (as early as the 9th century AD, lots of changes over the years)

The Qur’an

AFRICA:

Algeria:

Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade by Assia Djebar (1985)

The Bridges of Constantine by Ahlam Mosteghanemi (1993)

Cameroon:

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono (1956)

Egypt:

The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940 - 1640 B.C. translated by R.B. Parkinson

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (1956)

The Sinners by Yusuf Idris (1959)

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (1975)

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif (1999)

Ghana:

Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo (1977)

Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah (1979)

In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by Kwame Anthony Appiah (1992)

Guinea:

The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye (1954)

Kenya:

A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thing'o (1994)

The River and the Source by Margaret A. Ogola (1995)

Libya:

The Bleeding of the Stone by Ibrahim al-Koni (1990)

Mali:

The Fortunes of Wangrin by Amadou Hampâté Bâ (1973)

Nigeria:

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (1952)  

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966)

The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (1979)

Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka (1981)

Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English by Ken Saro-Wiwa (1985)

The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991)

Senegal:

God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène (1960)

So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ (1981)

Somalia:

Maps by Nuruddin Farah (1986)

South Africa:

When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head (1969)

Fools and Other Stories by Njabulo S. Ndebele (1986)

Sudan:

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1966)

Tunisia:

The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi (1957)

Zimbabwe:

The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera (1978)

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)

Miscellaneous Africa:

The Granta Book of the African Short Story edited by Helon Habila (2011)

The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (1963)

AMERICAS:

Antigua and Barbuda:

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (1988)

Argentina:

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944)

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (1963)

The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) by Macedonio Fernández (1967)

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig (1976)

The Sixty-Five Years of Washington by Juan José Saer (1985)

How I Became a Nun by César Aira (1993)

Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo (2015 but written earlier)

Brazil:

Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis (1900)

Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso (1959)

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado (1966)

Pedagagy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (1968)

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (1977)

Vast Emotions and Imperfect Thoughts by Rubem Fonseca (1988)

Chile:

The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso (1970)

Emergency Poems by Nicanor Parra (1972)

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982)

Colombia:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

Cuba:

The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier (1949)

Cold Tales by Virgilio Piñera (1958)

Dominican Republic:

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (1994)

Guatemala:

Men of Maize by Miguel Ángel Asturias (1949)

I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú (1985)

Guadalupe (part of France but overseas):

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé (1986)

Haiti:

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwige Danticat (1994)

Jamaica:

No Telephone to Heaven by Michelle Cliff (1987)

The True History of Paradise by Margaret Cezair-Thompson (1999)

Martinique (part of France but overseas):

Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire (1950)

Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961)

Poetics of Relation by Édouard Glissant (1997)

Mexico:

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (1955)

Aura by Carlos Fuentes (1962)

The Hole by José Revueltas (1969)

Underground River and Other Stories by Inés Arredondo (1979)

The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz (1987)

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (1989)

Nicaragua:

Azul by Rubén Darío (1888)

Peru:

The Cardboard House by Martín Adán (1928)

The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (1962)

The Complete Poems by César Vallejo (1968)

St. Lucia:

Omeros by Derek Walcott (1990)

Trinidad and Tobago:

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James (1938)

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (1961)

Uruguay:

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano (1971)

Venezuela:

Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos (1929)

Indigenous Writers from Canada and the United States:

American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá (Dakota) (1921)

Winter in the Blood by James Welch (Blackfeet and A’aninin) (1974)

Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes (Chumash) (1982)

She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) (1982) 

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (Chippewa) (1984)

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) (1986)

Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. (Dakota) (1988)

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power (Dakota) (1997)

Miscellaneous Americas:

And We Sold the Rain: Contemporary Fiction from Central America edited by Rosario Santos (1988)

Short Stories by Latin American Women: The Magic and the Real edited by Celia Correas de Zapata (2003)

Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicana and Chicano Literature edited by Cristina García (2006)

[crumbsofshadow]

“I have forgotten how to compose my features in company.”

- Helon Habila, Travelers

[aletdownsquid]

Comprehensive Exam Readings

My research “question”:

Many writers of U.S. fiction insert nonfiction documents into their narratives to critique how marginalized citizens are excluded from their rights to equal protection granted by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I’m interested in how African American authors and other writers of color have employed these strategies since the end of World War II; for example, the inclusion of real warrants for runaway slaves in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, or passages from U.S. treaties with Native American tribes featured in Watershed by Percival Everrett. In the essay, I will identify, historicize, and examine some of these conventions, and drawing upon Assemblage Theory and Third Space theory,  explore how these subversions of the fiction genre might allow authors of color to highlight historical truths, erase some of the distance between literary and political realms, and possibly affect political change.

To be completed by September 2020. (note: Strikethrough is complete / Bold means I intend to cite them in my comprehensive exam)

U.S. Fiction (Post ‘45): Major List

Guiding Questions:

How do works of geopolitical American fiction since the end of WWII explore the ways in which American exceptionalism has subjugated people of color? Specifically, how do these works examine the ways American colonial rule define U.S.–indigenous relations; and how do these works continue to engage with race in America since the Civil Rights movement?

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. Anchor, 2014.  

Akwaeke, Emezi. Freshwater. Grove, 2018.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Algonquin, 2010.

Aswany, Alaa Al. Chicago. Harper, 2008

Baldwin, James. Giovanni’s Room. Vintage, 2013.

Barthleme, Donald. “Concerning the Bodyguard,” Sixty Stories. Penguin, 2003. 

Beatty, Paul. The White Boy Shuffle. Picador, 2001.

Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Random House, 2012. 

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Vintage, 1991.

Clemmons, Zinzi. What We Lose. Viking, 2017.

Currie Jr., Ron. God is Dead: Stories. Penguin, 2008. 

Diaz, Junot. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Riverhead, 2006.

Egan, Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad. Anchor, 2010.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Vintage, 1995. 

Everett, Percival. Watershed. Beacon Press, 2003.

Gay, Roxane. Ayiti. Grove Press, 2018. 

Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. Berkley, 2005.

Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. Penguin, 1980. 

Habila, Helon. Travelers. W.W. Norton & Company, 2019. 

Hagedorn, Jessica. Dogeaters. Pantheon, 1990. 

Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Harvest, 2008.

Herrera, Yuri. Signs Preceding the End of the World. And Other Stories, 2015.

James, Marlon. A Brief History of Seven Killings. Riverhead, 2015. 

Jarrar, Randa. A Map of Home. Other Press, 2008.

Jen, Gish. Typical American. Harcourt, 2014. 

Johnson, Adam. The Orphan Master’s Son. Random House, 2013. 

Johnson, Mat. Pym. Spiegel & Grau, 2011.

Kaulfus, Ken. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. Harper Perennial, 2006. 

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. Vintage, 1989.

Kushner, Rachel. The Strange Case of Rachel K. New Directions, 2016.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies: Stories. Mariner, 1999. 

Lapcharoensap, Rattawut. Sightseeing: Stories. Grove Press, 2005. 

Le Nam. The Boat: Stories. Vintage, 2009.  

Lee, Chang-rae. Native Speaker. Riverhead Books, 1996. 

Luiselli, Valeria. The Story of My Teeth. Coffee House Press, 2015.

Mathews, John Joseph. Sundown. University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.

Mbue, Imbolo. Behold the Dreamers. Random House, 2017.

Mengetsu, Dinaw. How to Read the Air. Riverhead, 2011. 

Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010.

Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books, 2015.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer. Grove Press, 2015.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Refugees: Stories. Grove Press, 2018.

Okada, John. No-No Boy. University of Washington Press, 2014.

Orange, Tommy. There There. Vintage, 2018. 

Otsuka, Julie. The Buddha in the Attic. Anchor, 2012. 

Ozeki, Ruth. A Tale for the Time Being. Penguin Books, 2013. 

Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories. Riverhead, 2004. 

Pena, Daniel. Bang. Arte Publico, 2018. 

Reed, Ishmael. Japanese by Spring. Scribner, 1993. 

Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo. Scribner, 1972.

Rekdal, Paisley. Intimate: An American Family Photo Album. Tupelo Press, 2012.  

Salesses, Matthew. The Hundred-Year Flood. Little A, 2015. 

Sebald, W.G. The Emigrants. New Directions, 2016.

Shamsie, Kamila. Burnt Shadows. Picador, 2009. 

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. Penguin Books, 2006.

Washington, Bryan. Lot: Stories. Riverhead, 2019.

Williams, John Alfred. The Man Who Cried I Am. Harry N. Abrams, 2004.

Wright, Richard. Native Son.Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005. 

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. Dial Press, 1999.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. Dial Press, 1999.

African-American Iconoclast Fictions: Minor List

Guiding Questions:

What methods do African-American fiction writers use to interrogate racial subjugation for people of color in the United States and across the Global South?

Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame. Friday Black. Mariner Books, 2018

Baldwin, James. Go Tell it On the Mountain. Everyman’s Library, 2016.

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” Going to Meet the Man. Vintage, 1995.

Beatty, Paul. The Sellout. Picador, 2016.

Bell, Derrick. “Space Traders”

Brooks, Gwendolyn. Maud Martha. Third World Press, 1992. 

Butler, Octavia. Dawn. Aspect, 1997. 

Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2009.

Cole, Teju. Open City. Random House, 2012. 

DuBois, W.E.B., “On Being Crazy.”

Dumas, Henry. Goodbye Sweetwater. 

Ellis, Trey. Platitudes. Vintage, 1988.

Everett, Percival. Erasure. Graywolf Press, 2001.

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. Knopf, 1993.

Hannaham, James. Delicious Foods. Back Bay Books, 2016. 

Hopkinson, Nalo. Falling in Love with Hominids: Stories. Tachyon Publications, 2015. 

Hopkinson, Nalo. Midnight Robber. Grand Central Publishing, 2000.

Hughes, Langston. “One Friday Morning”

Hughes, Langston. “Salvation.”

Hurston, Zora Neale. “Sweat”

James, Marlon. The Book of Night Women. Riverhead, 2010.

Jones, Edward P. The Known World. Amistad, 2006.

Keene, John. Counternarratives: Stories and Novella. New Directions, 2015.

Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl”

Larsen, Nella. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand and The Stories. Anchor, 2001.

Laymon, Kiese. Long Division. Agate Bolden, 2013.

Mackey, Nathaniel. Late Arcade. New Directions, 2017.

MacPherson, James Alan. Hue and Cry: Short Stories. Harper Collins, 1969.

McFarland, Jeni. The House of Deep Water. Putnam, 2020.

Miller, Keith D., Joyce Lausch and Kevin Everod Quashie. New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in America. Prentice Hall, 2001. 

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage, 2004.

Morrison, Toni. Jazz. Vintage, 2004.

Morrison, Toni. Paradise. Vintage, 2004.

Reed, Ishmael. Flight to Canada. Penguin, 1976. 

Ross, Fran. Oreo. New Directions, 2015.

Scott, Rion Amilcar. The World Doesn’t Require You: Stories. Liverlight, 2018. 

Senna, Danzy. New People. Riverhead, 2017. 

Shuyler, George. Black No More. Penguin Classics, 2018. 

Thompson-Spires, Nafissa. Heads of Colored People: Stories. 37 Ink, 2018.

Toomer, Jean. Cane. W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.  

Toure. The Portable Promise Land. Back Bay Books, 2003.

Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. Anchor, 2010.

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2016.

Widerman, John Edgar. American Histories: Stories. Scribner, 2018.

Wideman, John Edgar. Phildelphia Fire. Vintage, 1991

Wideman, John Edgar. Fanon. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.

Theory: Assemblage & Third Space Theory 

Guiding Questions:

Can fiction be used as a tool to engender a new sense of belonging while rejecting a stable state of being? If so, how can this framework of assemblage be applied in fiction to highlight the ways local identities intersect with shared global perspectives? Can an assemblage approach to fiction encourage accountability for civil rights without state sanctioned legal status?

Agamben, G., 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books, 2012.

Anzaldua, Gloria. Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality (Latin America Otherwise). Duke University Press Books, 2015.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “The Case for Contamination." The New York Times Jan. 2006. 5 Nov. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.html

Bakshi, Sandeep, Jivraj Suhraiya and Silvia Posocco. Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions. Counterpress,  2016.

Belletto, Steven and Joseph Keith. Neocolonial Fictions of the Global Cold War, University of Iowa Press, 2019. 

Bhabha, Homi K. Nation and Narration. Routledge, 1990.

Bruynell, Kevin. Third Space of Sovereignty. University Of Minnesota Press, 2007.

DeLanda, Manuel. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

DeLanda, Manuel. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. Continuum, 2006.

Dubey, Madhu. Signs and Cities: Black Literary Postmodernism. University of Chicago Press, 2003. 

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 2005. 

Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey. Oxford University Press, 1988. 

Gwaltney, John Langston. Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America. The New Press, 1993. 

Goyal, Yogita. The Cambridge Companion to Transnational American Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Goyal, Yogita. Romance, Diaspora, and Black Atlantic Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 

Goyal, Yogita. Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery. NYU Press, 2019.

Knadler, Stephen. Remapping Citizenship and the Nation in African Literature. Routledge, 2010. 

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythology. The Crossing Press, 1982.  

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. The Crossing Press, 1984.  

Machado, Carmen Maria. In the Dream House: A Memoir. Graywolf, 2019. 

Madsen, Deborah L. Beyond Borders: American Literature and Post-Colonial Theory. Pluto Press, 2008.  

Munoz, Jose Estaban, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. University of Minnesota, 1999. 

Okker, Patricia. Transnationalism and American Serial Fiction. Routledge, 2012. 

Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. Routledge, 1994. 

Puar, Jasbir. “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess: Becoming intersectional in Assemblage Theory.” philoSOPHIA, vol. 2, no. 1, 2012, pp. 49-66. 

Puar, Jasbir. The Right to Maim. Duke University Press, 2017. 

Puar, Jasbir. Terrorist Assemblages. Duke University Press Books, 2007.

Rosen, Jeremy. “Literary Fiction and the Genres of Genre Fiction.” Post45, Aug. 2018. http://post45.research.yale.edu/2018/08/literary-fiction-and-the-genres-of-genre-fiction/ 

Rutherford, Johnathan. "The Third Space Interview with Homi Bhabha." Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, Lawrence and Wishart, 1990, pp. 207-221. 

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage, 1994. 

Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak. Yale University Press, 1987.

Shackleton, Mark. Diasporic Literature and Theory – Where Now? Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. 

Shamsie, Kamila. “The Storytellers of the Empire.” Guernica, Feb. 2012. <http://www.guernicamag.com/features/3458/shamsie…> 

Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press. 2016

Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art, as a Device.” 

Soja, Edward. Thirdspaces: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other-Real-and-Imagined Places. Blackwell Publishers, 1996. 

[ekute-ile]

Book 11,2017: 'The Chibok Girls,The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria' by Helon Habila. A broken heart I had reading this book. The unbelievable atrocities and pain caused by an evil set of 'animals' are brought to light in this book. This writer gives you an almost thorough insight into the families of the kidnapped girls. The impact of this sect's activities on a region and the country as a whole is clearly divulged in this book. A tragedy happened when 276 girls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok. Bring back our girls! Never forget. Weltanschauung!

[defavouredkings]

Writing is not a Child's Play

Writing is not a Child’s Play

WRITING IS NOT A CHILD’S PLAY

Writing is not for lazy minds, it is not for those who cannot think beyond where they are or what they see. It is not for those who cannot think outside the box neither is it for those who want to do it because others are doing it. It is not for those who have no purpose to which they write.

It is for those minds that can think and brainstorm and proffer solutions to…

[maryadeson]

This provided background on the Boko Haram, but not quite the in dept personal account I would have expected considering Habila travelled to meet the families and victims. Rating: 3.5 stars