This is an excerpt from the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse—which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female—but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans don’t like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.
At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name—Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.
I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
The House on Mango Street – Summary
Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.
Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
This is a quote from the epic poem Song of Kiều by Du Nguyên, translated from the Vietnamese by Timothy Allen.
Quote by Du Nguyên, “See the fierce power of a poem. Learn how words can leap across the years.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Song of Kiều – Summary
A stunning new translation of the legendary Vietnamese epic poem, now for the first time in Penguin Classics
Considered the greatest literary achievement in Vietnamese, The Song of Kieu tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thuy Kieu, who agrees to a financially profitable marriage in order to save her family from ruinous debts, but is tricked into working in a brothel. Her tragic life involves jealous wives, slavery, war, poverty, and time as a nun. Adapted from a seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Jin Yun Qiao, written by an unknown writer under the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen, author Nguyen Du upended the plot’s traditional love story by conveying the social and political upheavals at the end of the 18th century in Vietnam.
April is Poetry Month! So I will be sharing lots of poetry suggestions to help you find more poetry that you enjoy.
Like most forms of art, poetry is subjective and very personal. It can take time to find what you like. I want to remind you that you don’t have to like the poetry that people say you should, but I would encourage you to keep exploring poetry until you find what you enjoy.
For this week, I wanted to explore the intersection of philosophy and poetry. In my mind, these two often go hand-in-hand, as both explore our experience of the world and our place within society.
Many great thinkers have dabbled in art, and many artists have been great thinkers. Not to mention most religions often have both philosophical thinking and poetic musings/lessons within their religious texts.
Personally, I think some of our biggest concepts are most eloquently expressed in an artistic way. I believe it leaves more room for emotion, expression, and interpretation.
I’ve put together this list of philosophical poets. They are individuals who are known to have discussed large philosophical ideas and spiritual concepts through their poetry.
Most of these poets are from the middle ages (500-1500), as I think it’s important to discuss discuss the diversity of philosophy. A majority of discussions around medieval philosophy focus on the Greek and Roman influences, but there were so many important philosophers around the world with different perspectives and valuable insights.
So this list of philosophical poets is just an introduction to some big thinkers who chose to express their ideas through poetry.
Here’s a list of five philosophical poets to help you think. Each of these authors are known for being thought-provoking and insightful.
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131)
Rumi (1207-1273)
Hafez (1325-1390)
Kabir (1398-1518)
Kahlil GIbran (1883-1931)
Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve listed each in order of when they lived.
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131)
1048-1131
Genre(s): poetry, philosophy and math
Languages: Persian/Farsi and Arabic
Key books: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Key themes: pleasures of life, rationalist philosopher, pessimist
Omar Khayyam was born Ghiyath al-Din Abu’l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyámi. Khayyam was a poet, philosopher and mathmatician in 11th-century Persia. Most of his ideas within math and astonomy were not proven until long after his death.
Most of the poetry attributed to Khayyam is in the form of quatrains, which are four lines that form either a stanza or full poem. It’s difficult to confirm the authenticity of the poems attributed to Khayyam, especially as other Persian scholars were known to write in quatrains.
Khayyam rose to fame as a poet in the modern world in 1859 when Edward FitzGerald published his translation of Khayyam’s poetry. However FitzGerald’s translation of the poetry took significant liberties and is not considered an accurate translation.
Genre(s): poet, scholar, theologian, faqih, and mystic
Languages: mostly Persian, but also Turkish, Arabic and Greek
Masnavi is considered one of the greatest poems in the Persian language
Key themes: knowledge of oneness of God through love and external religions observances especially through music, dance and poetry
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (Persian: جلالالدین محمّد رومی), or often just Rumi, was from 13th century Persia (Greater Iran). He was a poet, an Islamic scholar, a Maturidi theoloian, Hanafi faqih (jurist), and Sufi mystic.
Rumi has been influential across the world, especially in the Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia, both in spiritual practices and literature.
His works are still read widely in the Persian-speaking world, and the translations of his work are popular all over the world. He’s often described as the “most popular poet” and even the “best selling poet” in the USA.
Rumi’s poetry focuses on the love that infuses the world. He was especially interested in seeking knowledge of tawhid (oneness of God) through love and believed passionately in using music, poetry, and dance as an outward expression of reaching for God. Rumi believed that music could help an individual focus their whole being on the divine, and these ideas are what led to the practice of whirling Dervishes becoming a ritualize form of worship and meditation.
Key books: The Divān of Hafez (a collection of his remaining poems)
Key themes: the beloved, faith, exposing hypocrisy, expressing the ecstasy of divine inspiration
Hafez (sometimes spelled Hafiz) was born Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی).
He was a Persian lyric poet who has influenced post-14th century Persian writing more than any other Persian author. Many Iranians consider Hafez the pinnacle of Persian literature and his works are still part of everyday life.
Hafez was a Sufi Muslim and wrote in the literary genre of lyric poetry or ghazals. Ghazals are a specific form of Arabic poetry that deals with romantic and spiritual love, and are considered ideal for expressing the ecstasy of divine inspiration.
Hafez is the most popular poet in Iran and most households own a copy of The Divān of Hafez (many use it for fortune telling). His work was first translated into English in 1771 and after that he also influenced many western authors like Thoreau, Goethe, W.B. Yeats, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Language: Sadhukkadi (a mix of Hindi, Bhojpuri, and Punjabi) & Bhojpuri
Key themes: critical of organized religions, loving devotion of God
Kabir is a well-known mystic poet from India and is considered an important figure for multiple religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Sufism.
He was critical of religions, especially organized religion. He often questioned the meaningless and unethical practices of all religions. His criticisms focused heavily on the major religions of his country, Hindu and Muslim, while maintaining his own independence from both of those religions.
Throughout his life, he was threatened by both Hindus and Muslims, but when he died both religions claimed him as theirs.
Kabir’s poems were composed with simple words and most were written in Sadhukkadi (a mix of Hindi, Bhojpuri and Punjabi). There are 82 works attributed to Kabir, but the authenticity of these works is still being discussed. It’s possible that changes have happened over time and also that some works attributed to Kabir were actually written by others.
Genre(s): poetry, parables, fables, essays, short stories, novels
Key books: The Prophet (philosophical essays)
Key themes: religion, free will, the soul, happiness, justice, body/death
Gibran Khalil Gibran (Arabic: جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان) is commonly referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran. He was a Lebanese-American poet, writer, philosopher and visual artist.
Gibran is considered one of the most important influences in the Romantic movement within Arabic poetry and literature during the first half of the twentieth century and is still widely celebrated as a literary hero in Lebanon.
Gibran’s writing spanned different forms and themes. His work has been seen to be innovative and breaking away from the forms of the past literary styles. The Arabic vocabulary used in his works were considered more colloquial or ordinary language, rather than the traditional or classic Arabic used in literature.
He is best known for his book The Prophet, a collection of philosophical essays, which has become one of the best-selling books of all time. The Prophet became popular in the 1960’s and was widely influential on musicians and artists of that era (including The Beatles, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, and Johnny Cash).
I hope you found something of interest in this list of philosophical poets.
I’m always looking for more suggestions of authors and books to read. I’d love to know which philosophical poets you love or that you would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.
This is an excerpt from the epic poem Song of Kiều by Du Nguyên, translated from the Vietnamese by Timothy Allen.
Kiều now brims with a strange melancholy till tiny pearls run down her cheeks.
‘A woman’s world is weaved from woe,’ she says, ’and the only thing we dream of is despair. God rips off our wings. God makes us die. Đạm Tiên, once a wished-for wife, is now a bony basket of wormy earth. Those boys are gone that used to hold her, and the promises they made are fallen to silence. Since no one is left to mourn for her, I will burn these few sticks of incense to mark how we have chanced upon her grave. Perhaps she can see us, from her Yellow Springs.’
Then Kiềum murmurs a heartfelt prayer and stoops to lay some grass upon the spot. Twilight falls across the rotting weeds and an evening breeze rustles the barley reeds. She draws a pin from her hair and carves a perfect four-line poem on a nearby tree. She steps back. She clears her mind, then melts into tears, like a squall of sudden rain. She pictures herself alone on a dark night, where shapeless horrors crowd the road ahead. She is a petal on flowing water, a water fern catching and drifting along a swollen stream.
Vân laughs and says: ‘My sister, how silly you are to waste hot tears on a long-dead stranger.’
Kiều answers: ‘But since this earth began, Cruel fate has cursed all women. I look on Đạm Tiên’s mossy tomb, and see my own, in days to come.’
Quan says: ‘So this is the real story. You talk of Đạm Tiên, but weep for yourself. Look, it’s getting dark. There is a chill in the air, and we still have a long walk home.
‘When stars die, their fire is gone,’ says Kiều, ‘but a dwindling light shines on. My soul has found its mate in this gloomy place. Let’s wait a while. I want to meet her ghost.’
Before they can answer, a tornado swirls up. It shakes the tree and tears off its leaves, trailing a strange perfume in its wake. They look along the path that the wind took to find it left damp footprints on the moos.
Vân and Quan stare at each other, dumbfounded.
Kiều says: ‘See the fierce power of a poem. Learn how words can leap across the years. She is my sister, though I am alive and she is dead.’
Again she takes the pin from her hair and adds a verse of thanks to Đạm Tiên. This one is a word picture in the old style, free from the shackles of rhyme and metre.
Have you read this epic poem?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Song of Kiều – Summary
A stunning new translation of the legendary Vietnamese epic poem, now for the first time in Penguin Classics
Considered the greatest literary achievement in Vietnamese, The Song of Kieu tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thuy Kieu, who agrees to a financially profitable marriage in order to save her family from ruinous debts, but is tricked into working in a brothel. Her tragic life involves jealous wives, slavery, war, poverty, and time as a nun. Adapted from a seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Jin Yun Qiao, written by an unknown writer under the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen, author Nguyen Du upended the plot’s traditional love story by conveying the social and political upheavals at the end of the 18th century in Vietnam.
This is a quote from the book Songs of Kabir by Kabir, translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
Quote by Kabir, “Were the Creator Concerned about caste, We’d arrive in the world With a caste mark on the forehead.”
Are you familiar with Kabir’s poetry? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.
Songs of Kabir – Summary
Here is the book summary:
Transcending divisions of creed, challenging social distinctions of all sorts, and celebrating individual unity with the divine, the poetry of Kabir is one of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs. These new translations by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India’s finest contemporary poets, bring out the richness, wit, and power of a literary and spiritual master.
This is an excerpt from the book Songs of Kabir by Kabir, translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
Were the Creator Concerned about caste, We’d arrive in the world With a caste mark on the forehead.
If you say you’re a Brahmin Born of a mother who’s a Brahmin, Was there a special canal Through which you were born?
And if you say you’re a Turk And your mother’s a Turk, Why weren’t you circumcised Before birth?
Nobody’s lower-caste; The lower castes are everywhere They’re the ones Who don’t have Rama on their lips.
Kabir says.
I’m waiting for the ferry, But where are we going, And is there a paradise anyway?
Besides, What will I, Who see you everywhere,
Do there? I’m okay where I am, says Kabir. Spare me the trip.
Are you familiar with Kabir’s poetry? How do you feel about this translation?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Songs of Kabir – Summary
Here is the book summary:
Transcending divisions of creed, challenging social distinctions of all sorts, and celebrating individual unity with the divine, the poetry of Kabir is one of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs. These new translations by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India’s finest contemporary poets, bring out the richness, wit, and power of a literary and spiritual master.
After a long delay, here is part two! I know it’s no longer Black History Month, but I wanted to make sure I shared part two of this.
It’s February which means it’s Black History Month, so I’ll be sharing content about Black authors. Most of what I’ll be sharing this month will come from Black American authors, as those are what I’m currently most familiar with. But it’s important to read from all over the world. Feel free to share your suggestions in the comments below!
As I mentioned last week in Part 1, I think it’s vital to diversify your reading and read from authors of many different perspectives.
There are great authors in every area of life and every part of the world. Each of them bring their own unique perspective and thoughts, as everyone has a unique experience of the world.
I believe the more you diversify your reading, the more you’ll understand the world and the more empathy you’ll have for everyone around you.
Everyone has their own unique experience of the world, but you can learn so much about others’ experience through the content they create, including books. The more you listen to others, the more you can discover your personal blind spots and unconscious biases. Just because you haven’t experienced it, doesn’t mean that no one else has.
So, for Black History Month, I highly recommend finding books to read by Black authors. You don’t have to read them this month. With so many people talking about Black History Month and focusing on Black voices, it’s easy to find books to buy or add to your TBR list.
For this month, I’ll be sharing some Black American women that I admire and would recommend reading their works.
All of these women have had a huge impact on society and the literary world, and they’re all incredibly well known. Think of this as more of an introduction to the classics and a starting point, not a deep-dive into the lesser known. But please share any other suggestions you have in a comment below.
I shared five women last week (see Part 1 here), and I’m back with another five this week. I’ve listed them in order of the year they were born.
Five Black American Women Authors to Read
Here’s a list of five Black American women authors to read for Black History Month.
Audre Lorde – poet & essayist
Dr. Angela Davis – nonfiction, civil rights icon
Alice Walker – novelist
Octavia Butler – science fiction novelist
bell hooks – feminist theorist
Keep reading to find out more about each one!
And don’t forget to come back next week to learn about the next five!
1. Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
1934-1992
Died at the age of 58
Genre(s):
Key books: Sister Outsider, The Black Unicorn
Key Essay: The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House
Audre Lorde identified herself as a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”.
A lot of her efforts were related to social activism, working to confront and address various areas of injustice, including racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, both through political activist work and as a thought leader. Her written work centered around feminism, lesbianism, illness and civil rights, all of it as an exploration of the black female identity.
Lorde’s work was heavily focused on the area of intersectionality, as she intertwined her personal experience (with all aspects of her identity) with broader social movements. She mostly focused on race, class, and sexuality, and actively confronted issues of racism within feminist spheres.
Key books: Women, Race & Class, Are Prisons Obsolete?
Dr. Angela Davis is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She studied first at the University of California and completed her doctorate at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
After she completed her doctorate, she moved back to the United States and became heavily involved in activism. She joined the Communist Party and worked with the Black Panther party, along with heavily campaigning against the Vietnam war. She’s an influential though leader from the second-wave feminist movement and is now a key figure in the prison abolitionist movement.
Throughout her life, she has stayed consistent in advocating against imperialism, racism, sexism, and the prison–industrial complex (part of the prison abolition movement), and showing her support for gay rights and other social justice movements. She has been a long time advocate for the freedom of Palestine and understanding the need for international collective liberation.
Important Note: Nowadays, Alice Walker is considered controversial for her anti-semitic comments and support of David Icke (rebuttal here on Al Jazeera Opinions and she’s been posting a lot about Free Palestine on her website), along with her TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) comments as she puts her support behind J.K. Rowling (link to a post about it by Out and her post on her website). I include her here because of her impact through her novel The Color Purple.
Alice Walker rose to fame with her novel The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1982. She was the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.
She’s been a prolific writer, with 17 novels and short story collections, 12 non-fiction works and collections of essays and poetry, and continues writing on her website (www.alicewalkersgarden.com).
Walker’s work focused on the intersection of being both black and a woman. She has very specific feminist views, mostly advocating for women of colour. She even coined the term “womanist” to mean “a black feminist or feminist of color.”
Octavia Butler is a prominent American science fiction writer, who won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. She’s most known for blending science fiction with African American spiritualism and is associated with Afrofuturism (“speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th-century technoculture”).
She read science fiction from a young age but was disappointed with its portrayals of race and class. As a writer, she intentionally wrote herself into the genre by using her perspective as an African American woman.
Butler has been influential in the science fiction literary world, especially for people of colour. Her works often highlight themes related to race, gender, class, and power.
Key books: Ain’t I A Woman?, Feminist Theory, All About Love
bell hooks was born as Gloria Jean Watkins, and her pen name was borrowed from Bell Blair Hooks, her maternal great-grandmother. hooks is an American author and social activist, with most of her writings centred around race, feminism, and class.
hooks authored around 40 books during her lifetime. Most of her work was around the intersectionality of race, capitalism and gender, specifically looking at the systems of oppression and class domination.
She always wrote her name in lowercase letters as an ode to her great-grandmother and to symbolize that the focus should always be on the ideas conveyed not the person sharing them.
I hope you found something of interest in this list of authors. If you missed it, you can read part 1 here.
I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which books written by these women that you love or would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!
Have you read anything by these authors?
What did you think of it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.
This is an excerpt from the book Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin.
Beyond Sixth Avenue the movie houses began, and now he studied the stills carefully, trying to decide which of all these theaters he should enter. He stopped at last before a gigantic, colored poster that represented a wicked woman, half undressed, leaning in a doorway, apparently quarreling with a blond man who stared wretchedly into the street. The legend above their heads was: “There’s a fool like him in every family-and a woman next door to take him over!” He decided to see this, for he felt identified with the blond young man, the fool of his family, and he wished to know more about his so blatantly unkind fate.
And so he stared at the price above the ticket-seller’s window and, showing her his coins, received the piece of paper that was charged with the power to open doors. Having once decided to enter, he did not look back at the street again for fear that one of the saints might be passing and, seeing him, might cry out his name and lay hands on him to drag him back. Не walked very quickly across the carpeted lobby, looking at nothing, and pausing only to see his ticket torn, half of it thrown into a silver box and half returned to him. And then the usherette opened the doors of this dark palace and with a flashlight held behind her took him to his seat. Not even then, having pushed past a wilderness of knees and feet to reach his designated seat, did he dare to breathe; nor, out of a last, sick hope for forgiveness, did he look at the screen. He stared at the darkness around him, and at the profiles that gradually emerged from this gloom, which was so like the gloom of Hell. He waited for this darkness to be shattered by the light of the second coming, for the ceiling to crack upward, revealing, for every eye to see, the chariots of fire on which descended a wrathful God and all the host of Heaven. He sank far down in his seat, as though his crouching might make him invisible and deny his presence there. But then he thought: “Not yet. The day of judgment is not yet,” and voices reached him, the voices no doubt of the hapless man and the evil woman, and he raised his eyes helplessly and watched the screen.
The woman was most evil. She was blonde and pasty white, and she had lived in London, which was in England, quite some time ago, judging from her clothes, and she coughed. She had a terrible disease, tuberculosis, which he had heard about. Someone in his mother’s family had died of it. She had a great many boy friends, and she smoked cigarettes and drank. When she met the young man, who was a student and who loved her very much, she was very cruel to him. She laughed at him because he was a cripple. She took his money and she went out with other men, and she lied to the student—who was certainly a fool. He limped about, looking soft and sad, and soon all John’s sympathy was given to this violent and unhappy woman. He understood her when she raged and shook her hips and threw back her head in laughter so furious that it seemed the veins of her neck would burst. She walked the cold, foggy streets, a little woman and not pretty, with a lewd, brutal swagger, saying to the whole world: “You can kiss my ass.” Nothing tamed or broke her, nothing touched her, neither kindness, nor scorn, nor hatred, nor love. She had never thought of prayer. It was unimaginable that she would ever bend her knees and come crawling along a dusty floor to anybody’s altar, weeping for forgiveness. Perhaps her sin was so extreme that it could not be forgiven; perhaps her pride was so great that she did not need forgiveness. She had fallen from that high estate which God had intended for men and women, and she made her fall glorious because it was so complete. John could not have found in his heart, had he dared to search it, any wish for her redemption. He wanted to be like her, only more powerful, more thorough, and more cruel; to make those around him, all who hurt him, suffer as she made the student suffer, and laugh in their faces when they asked pity for their pain. He would have asked no pity, and his pain was greater than theirs. Go on, girl, he whispered, as the student, facing her implacable ill will, sighed and wept. Go on, girl. One day he would talk like that, he would face them and tell them how much he hated them, how they had made him suffer, how he would pay them back!
Nevertheless, when she came to die, which she did eventually, looking more grotesque than ever, as she deserved, his thoughts were abruptly arrested, and he was chilled by the expression on her face. She seemed to stare endlessly outward and down, in the face of a wind more piercing than any she had left on earth, feeling herself propelled with speed into a kingdom where nothing could help her, neither her pride, nor her courage, nor her glorious wickedness. In the place where she was going, it was not these things that mattered but something else, for which she had no name, only a cold intimation, something that she could not alter in any degree, and that she had never thought of. She began to cry, her depraved face breaking into an infant’s grimace; and they moved away from her, leaving her dirty in a dirty room, alone to face her Maker. The scene faded out and she was gone; and though the movie went on, allowing the student to marry another girl, darker, and very sweet, but by no means so arresting, John thought of this woman and her dreadful end. Again, had the thought not been blasphemous, he would have thought that it was the Lord who had led him into this theater to show him an example of the wages of sin. The movie ended and people stirred around him; the newsreel came on, and while girls in bathing suits paraded before him and boxers growled and fought, and baseball players ran home safe and presidents and kings of countries that were only names to him moved briefly across the flickering square of light John thought of Hell, of his soul’s redemption, and struggled to find a compromise between the way that led to life everlasting and the way that ended in the pit. But there was none, for he had been raised in the truth. He could not claim, as African savages might be able to claim, that no one had brought him the gospel. His father and mother and all the saints had taught him from his earliest childhood what was the will of God. Either he arose from this theater, never to return, putting behind him the world and its pleasures, its honors, and its glories, or he remained here with the wicked and partook of their certain punishment. Yes, it was a narrow way—and John stirred in his seat, not daring to feel it God’s injustice that he must make so cruel a choice.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Go Tell It On the Mountain – Summary
“Mountain,” Baldwin said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.”
Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the son of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin’s rendering of his protagonist’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.
This is a quote from the book Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin.
Quote by James Baldwin, “He would enter on another day, when he had read all the books uptown, an achievement that would he felt, lend him the poise to enter any building in the world.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Go Tell It On the Mountain – Summary
“Mountain,” Baldwin said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.”
Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the son of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin’s rendering of his protagonist’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.
It’s February which means it’s Black History Month, so I’ll be sharing content about Black authors. Most of what I’ll be sharing this month will come from Black American authors, as those are what I’m currently most familiar with. But it’s important to read from all over the world. Feel free to share your suggestions in the comments below!
I think it’s important both to pay attention to who you’re reading and make sure that you diversify your reading by reading from many perspectives. There are incredible authors of every gender, ethnicity, nationality, and in every era; and each bring their own perspective to their work.
Black History Month
Black History Month is a great opportunity to focus on reading books by Black authors. Or learning more about books by Black authors so that you can add them to your TBR.
Personally, I think it’s great that people are highlighting Black voices this month, because it’s a great chance to educate yourself on what’s out there. There are endless resources available to you, you just need to
If you’re not regularly exposed to Black authors, maybe it’s time to add some new book-influencers into your media experience. But also, the number of people who are talking about Black authors greatly increases during this month, so it’s easy for you to find endless suggestions in every genre. And that’s a wonderful thing.
I don’t think it matters what you read during February, but I would highly encourage you to take this time to discover new authors. It’s also a great chance to take notice of who you’ve been reading, and if you’ve read anything by a Black author recently.
This month
For this month, I’ll be sharing some Black American women that I admire and would recommend reading their works.
All of these women have had a huge impact on society and the literary world, and they’re all incredibly well known. Think of this as more of an introduction to the classics and a starting point, not a deep-dive into the lesser known. But please share any other suggestions you have in a comment below.
I’ll be sharing five women this week, and another five next week. I’ve listed them in order of the year they were born.
Five Black American Women Authors to Read
Here’s a list of five Black American women authors to read for Black History Month.
Phillis Wheatley
Zora Neale Hurston
Maya Angelou
Lorraine Hansberry
Toni Morrison – novelist
Keep reading to find out more about each one!
And don’t forget to come back next week to learn about the next five!
1. Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
1753-1784
Died at age 31
Genre(s): Poetry
Key book: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa, but was then kidnapped and sold to the Wheatley family of Boston when she was seven or eight. In addition to her domestic obligations, the Wheatley family did provide her with an extensive education and encouraged her to pursue writing. However, she was not emancipated/manumitted (set free) from the family until after she published her book of poetry.
Phillis Wheatley was the first Black American woman to publish poetry, and considered the first to make a living from her writing. Despite having to be interviewed by 18 prominent men in Boston to prove that she wrote her own poetry, no one in the Americas was willing to publish her poetry. She was finally able to publish this collection of poetry in London in 1773.
Despite international recognition, she was unable to find anyone to publish any further volumes of poetry. She was able to publish some poetry in pamphlets and newspapers, but only in limited amounts.
Unfortunately, she ended up dying in abject poverty, with many of her poems lost due to lack of support.
Zora Neale Hurston was a central part of the Harlem Renaissance, and wrote about black life in the American South.
She wrote four novels, along with more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Their Eyes Were Watching God was her most popular novel.
Barracoon wasn’t publish until 2018, which was her nonfiction book about the life of Cudjoe Lewis (Kossola). Cudjoe was one of the last slaves to be brought to the US on the ship Clotilda (the last slave ship).
She was fairly unknown and barely recognized by the literary world for decades. In 1975, Alice Walker’s article in Ms. magazine, “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston”, sparked interest in her work fifteen years after her death.
Maya Angelou had a far reaching career, both as an entertainer (singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first Black director), storyteller (writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet), civil rights activist (worked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X), and educator (as a lifetime professorship at Wake Forest University).
She wrote 36 books and is best known for her memoirs and poetry. Her first memoir (of seven), I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, was nominated for a National Book Award and overall was very successful.
She won numerous awards and honours, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, a Tony Award, three Grammys, served on two presidential committees, and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama (the highest civilian honor in the USA).
Videos
Maya Angelou was not only an incredible author, but also an amazing performer. Here are some videos so you can see her work performed by the author herself.
At Bill Clinton’s inauguration she recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” and you can see her inaugural poem recited here. This made her the first poet since Robert Frost (John F. Kennedy in 1961) to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration.
Lorraine Hansberry is most known for her play A Raisin in the Sun, but she also wrote for the Freedom (Pan-Africanist = working towards solidarity of all people of African ancestry) newspaper and was an activist.
She was the first African-American women author to have a play, A Raisin in the Sun, performed on Broadway. She was also the first African-American dramatist and youngest playwright (at age 29) to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
Her activism focused not only on American civil rights, but also on international efforts, especially African struggles for liberation. She primarily focused on the impact on women within these larger societal struggles.
Some people consider her an activist for gay rights, but her work in this area was limited. She lived most of her life as a closeted lesbian, but wrote a few letters to the magazine The Ladder (a magazine run by the Daughters of Bilitis, a San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization). Then, near the end of her life, it seemed as though she was becoming more comfortable with her attraction to women. But all her work and personal writings related to being a lesbian was withheld from the public by her ex-husband, until finally released by his daughter in 2013.
Key books: Beloved, The Bluest Eye, & Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison is recognized as one of the best authors of her generation and she’s well-known for focusing on the Black experience. She specifically worked to ensure that the “white gaze” was not central in any of her works, and preferred to focus on the black community rather than interactions with white people.
She worked first as a university professor and then as an editor in the publishing industry. Her debut book, The Bluest Eye, came out in 1970 while she was still working as a book editor. She didn’t leave the publishing industry until 1983, after 20 years in the industry and four novels published.
Toni Morrison has won numerous awards and honours, including the National Book Critics Circle Award (for her third book – Song of Solomon), the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved, the Nobel Prize in 1993, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012.
I hope you found something of interest in this list of authors.
I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which books written by these women that you love or would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!
Have you read anything by these authors? What did you think of it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.
