welcome to the challenge!

[Aidan]

Hey everyone!

Thanks for taking the Authors of Color challenge with me in 2016. The idea is simple: we agree that half of the books we read in 2016 will be written by people of color. As you'll see in the "great idea" topic, I got this idea from Andrea Nolan, who committed to making half of her reads books written by women. I thought it would be wonderful to do the same with authors of color.

I suggest that when you read a book you really enjoy, you post it in the group's bookshelf. I also encourage you, as you learn more about yourself and your assumptions, to post other discussion topics, as you feel comfortable and interested.

Also, please spread the word to your other friends. The more the merrier!

Happy reading!

Will

[Julia]

Hi Will and Andrea,

How broadly will be be defined "Author of Color?" Some choices are going to be obvious, but what about Chinese, Middle Eastern, South Asian (well, you get the idea)?

Julia

[Aidan]

Hi Julia,

I have a ton of thoughts on your excellent question.

The simple answer is that I don't feel the need to prescriptive with the challenge. So, I'll leave it up to each of us to determine how broadly or narrowly to define "author of color."

For myself, I'm interested in including authors who are writing from the racial and ethnic margins. Broadly defined, that would include any non-white (i.e., anyone who is not of European descent) authors. Already, though, in such a definition I encounter the strange contradictions of race and ethnicity. Because virtually no one (at least in America) is exclusively of European descent. So, for myself, I also want to take into account, as much as possible, a writer's racial or ethnic self-assignation.

Another part of project, as far as I see it, is to begin to notice those writers we claim as "white" or "Western" who, in fact, belong in neither category. Augustine and Origen, the two most towering intellectual figures in Christian thought, are wonderful examples. They were both North African, and, though Roman, lived on the margins of the Empire. In some sense it would be anacrhonistic to call them "writers of color," but for the purposes of this project, I think I will learn a lot from reading them from that perspective.

Those are just a few of my own thoughts on the subject. Whomever you choose include in the category, I do think part of the benefit of this practice is wrestling with the often slippery questions surrounding race, ethnicity, belonging, and marginality.

Happy reading!
Will

[Julia]

Hi Will,

Thank you for your very helpful reply. Slippery questions indeed! I look forward to 2016 and working through the challenge.

Julia

[Parvin]

Hi Will,
Looking forward to the challenge. it is always a great idea to diversify what we read, like Julia i was also wondering if we will include asian authors along with african ones. i follow south asian contemporary literature closely, so hope we can have a broader understanding of the criteria.

Parvin

[Aidan]

Hey Parvin,

Glad to have you on board! I'm leaving it up to each person to define for herself what to include in the category of "authors of color." I certainly plan to include Asian authors as well as African and Middle Eastern.

Will

[Meredith]

Hi Will. This is a really good idea. I just went through my reading list for the past year to add to the group bookshelf and found only a handful by authors of color. I would love to see others' recommendations.

[Julia]

Hi Meredith,
Thanks for the recommendations! You've inspired me to post more beyond the four that I added a couple of weeks ago. However, I'm having problems adding (can't seem to get the new recommendations--except for two of them--to show in the list. I'll try again later.

[Erik]

I'm excited about this challenge too. I might not quite be able to do half of my reading this way (since I also read for my job at the library), but I do plan on paying more attention to my reading diversity.