ext_228629 ([identity profile] zalena.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] coraa 2009-03-04 06:33 am (UTC)

Did you know that Alexander Dumas' grandmother was a slave? That would make him, what, a quadroon? Yet most people wouldn't necessarily associate his literature with being 'non-white' and he largely lived with the pleasures and privileges afforded to white men in his world. However, his Count of Monte Cristo has been read as a slave narrative.

I would recommend Zadie Smith White Teeth, which is a whacky tale of multi-racial Britain. I haven't enjoyed her other books, but the first one is insane and entertaining, and like nothing I have ever read before.

And why not pick up bestseller Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers for an easy read and a total change of pace. The book is fascinating, if not entirely convincing, in part because some of it deals with demographics relating to race in our own time. I can't help but feel it smacks of scientism rather than science, but read it for yourself and see what you think.

I also want to raise the question, not because I disagree with your goal or am trying to pick a fight, but isn't the project of reading 50 books by non-white authors something of a biased act in and of itself?

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