21st Century Literature discussion
Question of the Week
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Which Novels About Racism Have Stayed With You The Longest? (6/7/20)
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Probably Beloved, but what has actually stayed with me the longest, since first seeing the film, is not a novel but a play, A Raisin in the Sun.And a book I keep thinking about, which also isn't a novel, is Men We Reaped.
1. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
3. The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
The ones that have stayed with me the most...Fiction:
Augustown
The Good Lord Bird
Darktown (Book 1) and Lightning Men (Book 2)
A Moment in the Sun
Underground Airlines
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Probably a spoiler for this book, so I'll hide it:
(view spoiler)
Poetry:
Citizen: An American Lyric
Short stories:
The Ways of White Folks
Non-fiction:
Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
The Blood of Emmett Till
Murder at Broad River Bridge: The Slaying of Lemuel Penn by the Ku Klux Klan
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Additional non-fiction I recommend:
Panthers in the Hole
How to Be an Antiracist
The Fire Next Time
The Fire This Time
Between the World and Me
Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigations of a Lifetime
You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
No Cause For Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark
Perhaps inevitably given current events, the books already posted are mostly American, but a couple of British ones:Small Island by Andrea Levy (which actually has stayed with me and I think about scenes and atmosphere from it quite often, perhaps because of it being relevant to many immigrants just after WWII)
and another set - but also written - around the same time, The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
Whilst White Teeth is more than a novel about racism per se (as many of these in the thread are), there were scenes in it from the point of view of the Iqbals that had an impact, though they might seem a bit clichéd if re-read now.
There are scenes from Beloved I think back to, especially because of how they dramatise the trauma of slavery survivors and the beginning of its intergenerational legacy.
Americanah was important, as although I wasn't sure I liked some of it *as a novel*, it did prompt me to go and read a great deal of material on antiracist blogs around 2013-14 (in particular stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot - which was already dormant but contained a lot of material based around popularising of Critical Race Theory, that would become increasingly prevalent online in the following years - and Black Girl Dangerous, which is now a much bigger magazine type site.)
Dee wrote: "I stumbled upon this Black Liberation Reading List by the Schomburg Center and NY Public Library and thought that it might interest some other posters in this thread. It's a mix of fiction, non-fic..."Thank you! Adding many to my to-read list...
I would like to add Passing by Nella Larsen, a Novella I found very enlightening. Although it's short, the story has lot of layers to it that keep you thinking long after reading it.
Ines wrote: "I would like to add Passing by Nella Larsen, a Novella I found very enlightening. Although it's short, the story has lot of layers to it that keep you thinking long afte..."A good one to read in tandem is Boy, Snow, Bird.
Mod
For me, I'd list these novels:
- Roots: The Saga of an American Family (Haley)
- The Bluest Eye (Morrison)
- Black Boy (Wright)
- The Sellout (Beatty)
- Negrophobia (James)
- Kindred (Butler)
- Homegoing (Gyasi)
Already mentioned above, but definitely worth more mentions is the poetry collection Citizen: An American Lyric--I actually came across this in the grocery store and almost read the whole thing before I checked out.
Kate wrote: "I'd like to add the novel Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward."This one breaks my heart because I believe in my review I ding'd it for the cop encounter scene being too melodramatic. talk about showing my ignorance. time for a re-read.
Mod
That's a wonderful list--thanks for sharing, Dee!
Marc, Thanks for noting Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. It should have been on my list. I read it in 2015 after seeing that it had been nominated in 2014 for both the poetry and criticiam National Book Critics awards. I noted in my review that it was an important book and one that deserves a broad audience. The book, for me, provided insight into the covert and emotional side of racism. Given the increased exposure of racial profiling and the violence associated with it, I think it is important to try to understand the emotional impact of such profiling.
I could name quite a few, including several that have already been mentioned, but images from Beloved have remained with me since I read it over ten years ago.
Mod
The ones that have stuck with me are:Invisible Man
Beloved
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Lonely Londoners
Marc wrote: "Linda, Stacia deserves credit for bringing up Citizen: An American Lyric. I'm glad posters to this thread have included books beyond novels."So she did! I missed it. Seems there are three of us toting it then!
Mod
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents also by Butler
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
There There by Tommy Orange
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Mod
Well worth the totings!
Thanks, Linda. The NYT link is making my re-read list grow...
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Parable of the Sower (other topics)Parable of the Talents (other topics)
The Sellout (other topics)
Beloved (other topics)
The Underground Railroad (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Octavia E. Butler (other topics)Toni Morrison (other topics)
Colson Whitehead (other topics)
Paul Beatty (other topics)
Tommy Orange (other topics)
More...
Which novels about racism have stuck with you through the years?