Bone clocks. Briefly Noted. Guapa, by Saleem Haddad (Other Press).
Rasa, the narrator of this vibrant, wrenching début novel, is a young gay man living in an unnamed Arab city. During the Arab Spring, he joined protests, but now an autocratic regime rules while zealots seethe in the slums. Worse, Rasa’s fiercely traditional grandmother has just seen him with his lover, and his lover is growing distant. In the course of a day, as Rasa hunts for a missing friend, who has likely been hauled in by the vice squad, his city and his memories roil, sensuous and caustic, full of smoke and blood. My 2015 Reading List Includes Nothing Written By White Men. Eight Books and Articles White Feminists Should Read for Black History Month. White feminists have a bad history of ignoring Black women at best and actively harming and discriminating against them at worst.
When we do learn about Black history, it is often through a patriarchal lens and through the work of male writers (we learn about Martin but not Ida). Similarly, just like white women dominate mainstream media (movies, TV, magazine and book covers) we also dominate mainstream feminism. Behind every propped up Sheryl Sandberg are countless overlooked and devalued brilliant Black women.
If we do not want to repeat the mistakes of white feminists of the past, we must work at learning how to decenter ourselves and unlearn the harmful stereotypes we are socialized from a young ago to believe. The below list is in no way complete or exhaustive.