Brit Bennett’s book, The Vanishing Half, is an exploration of family relations, of the flawed notions of colourism and their insidious and long-lasting effects on the human psyche, and of two sisters’ determination to carve out their lives in spectacularly different ways from their small farm town, Mallard. The book is above all, a story…
Title: Everything I Never Told You Author: Celeste Ng Published: 2014 Genre: Fiction The book opens with “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” From then, the author sketches a portrait of Lydia’s family using different points of view to give insight into each family member’s state of mind on finding out that…
Title: She Would Be King Author: Wayétu Moore Published: 2018 Genre: Historical fiction & magic realism In She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore reimagines the beginnings of Liberia, the West-African country founded by freed African-Americans and slaves from other countries. Fusing magic realism and historical fiction to tell the history of a country founded…
Title: Girl, Woman, Other Author: Bernadine Evaristo Published: 2019 Genre: Fiction For the sisters & the sistas & the sistahs & the sistren & the women & the womxn & the wimmin & the womyn & our brethren & our bredrin & our brothers & our bruvs & our men & our mandem &…
Title: It’s not about the burqa Author: edited by Marian Khan Published: 2019 Genre: Non-fiction This collection of essays written my Muslim women on their faith; their representation in mainstream media, or lack thereof; their feminism in the face of pre-conceived views about the oppression of veiled Muslim women; their sexuality and their race. “Here…
Title: Swing Time Author: Zadie Smith Publisher: Penguin Books Published: 2016 Genre: Fiction Zadie Smith’s musical tale is about relationships in general and friendships in particular. Swing Time, about two childhood friends whose lives take completely different trajectories is vivid, amusing and altogether very real. The narrator and her best friend Tracey, grow up in…
Title: Talk of the Town Author: Fred Khumalo Publisher: Kwela Books Published: 2019 Genre: Fiction In this collection of short stories, Khumalo tackles the ideas of South African identity and of belonging by routinely detailing the particularities of South Africans – illustrating their ubuntu and simultaneously pulling apart the ideas that have given rise to…
Title: Heads of the Colored People Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires Publisher: Chatto & Windus (Penguin Random House imprint) Published: 2018 Genre: Fiction And what is a black network narrative but the story of one degree of separation, sketching the same pain over and over…? The blurb reads that the collection ‘interrogates our supposedly post-racial…
Title: Educated Author: Tara Westover Publisher: Penguin Random House Published: 2018 Genre: Memoir In Educated, Tara Westover recounts her childhood about growing up as the youngest of seven children in a Mormon survivalist family. Not only was their life lived along the strictures of a belief that espoused very conservative religious views, but their father…
Title: Lullaby Author: Leila Slimani Publisher: Faber & Faber Published: 2016 Genre: Fiction Leila Slimani’s psychological thriller about a family nanny that murders the two children she minds is an interesting exploration of human fragility and instability. Myriam and her husband Paul, a young Parisian couple with young children, interview for a nanny when Myriam decides…