Myra here.
Inspired by this book that I have just recently bought and our 2021 reading theme on #SurvivalStories featuring marginalized voices, we are devoting our entire 2022 to “decolonizing our bookshelves.”
Over the past several years, we have demonstrated our commitment to read as diversely and as purposively as possible through our reading themes that focus on international/translated, multicultural titles and reading the world. However, I feel an increasing urge to deepen this discourse on diversity and to really interrogate why certain voices remain silenced while others are pushed to the forefront, possibly because of expediency or unquestioned privilege or even implicit assumptions of the publishing industry of what the market supposedly demands.
I will most likely create another post that hopefully will capture my sentiments after reading This Is The Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelf in 50 Books by Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne, and Kadija Sesay (Amazon | Book Depository) – and our reading goals for the year. I am pretty realistic, though, and know that it is highly unlikely I will read all 50 books recommended by the authors. So do watch out for my post on my reading goals given our reading theme this year: #DecolonizeBookshelves2022.
Thank you so much to my husband who is continually supportive and found some of these books he knows are on my list (and a few others that may not necessarily fit our theme but have caught my eye) while we are here in the US for the holidays.
Decolonize Your Bookshelves – My Jolabokaflod 2020
(01) So Long A Letter by Mariama Ba (Amazon | Book Depository)
(02) Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid (Amazon | Book Depository)
(03) Woman Hollering Creek And Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros (Amazon | Book Depository)
(04) Territory Of Light by Yuko Tsushima (Amazon | Book Depository)
(05) Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau (Amazon | Book Depository)
(06) A Question Of Power by Bessie Head (Amazon | Book Depository)
(07) The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah (Amazon | Book Depository)
(08) Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Amazon | Book Depository)
(09) The Book Of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Amazon | Book Depository)
(10) At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop (Amazon | Book Depository)
(11) The Joys Of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Amazon | Book Depository)
(12) Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo (Amazon | Book Depository)
(13) A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (Amazon | Book Depository)
(14) Segu by Maryse Conde (Amazon | Book Depository)
(15) Children Of The New World: A Novel Of The Algerian War by Assia Djebar and translated by Marjolijn de Jager (Amazon | Book Depository)
(16) The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier (Amazon | Book Depository)
(17) Love In A Fallen City by Eileen Chang and Translated by Karen S. Kingsbury (Amazon | Book Depository)
(18) All About H. Hatterr by G. V. Desani (Amazon | Book Depository)
(19) Woman At Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (Amazon | Book Depository)
(20) Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata (Amazon | Book Depository)
(21) The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Amazon | Book Depository)
(22) The Bridges Of Constantine by Ahlem Mosteghanemi (Amazon | Book Depository)
NYRB Titles
(23) Abigail by Magda Szabo and Translated by Len Rix (Amazon | Book Depository)
(24) In The Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm (Amazon | Book Depository)
(25) The Other by Thomas Tryon (Amazon | Book Depository)
(26) Nothing But The Night by John Williams (Amazon | Book Depository)
How about you? Any recent book gifts received during the holidays?
January 2, 2022 at 06:31AM Myra Garces-Bacsal
