I've been super busy with work this spring, so I haven't had an opportunity to post for a while, but I'm finally getting around to this one. I just finished reading my own choice for this category, which was Russel Banks' novel The Darling about a white woman from the Weather Underground who winds up in Liberia, married to a government minister, and then involved in the civil war between Charles Taylor, Prince Johnson and Samuel Doe. The reason for this category's entry into into the challenge was that one of my friends really wanted to read another book by Banks, and thus "rigged" the cateogory. Thankfully, others were interested in reading books by the recently departed. This category may seem a little maudlin or macabre, but it's true that writers who we may not have paid attention to in life get more attention when they die because of the obituaries that come out.
Sadly there are many eligible people for this category. Since this category is "recently-ish" I've decided that means within the last five years. I decided to only include authors whose work I've read myself and remember well enough to really talk about, though of course there have been some recent major literary deaths that I haven't included below.
Since several of the authors I chose were fierce critics of the US government, but also knew, "it's not just American where shit's fucked up." today's musical accompaniment comes from the late Jaimie Branch, a fantastic jazz musician who died in 2022, playing "Prayer for AmeriKKKa pt 1 and 2"
Here are my suggestions:
1. Russell Banks Since I've already mentioned him, here's why you should read a book by him. Banks is a meticulous writer who creates wonderfully believable characters. For example, in the Darling, his point-of-view character is Hannah Musgrave, a white woman activist from the 60s, told in flashback from the early 1990s. It never felt "off" to me at all. He also takes on serious political issues without being didactic. I say he's meticulous because so many of his novels are also about distinct historical periods - such as his book Cloudsplitter, about John Brown, which is probably the best work of fiction about John Brown and abolition in general.
2. Toni Morrison This is my second recommendation for her for one of the reading challenge categories. She counts for this category because she died in 2019, within the last five years.
3.I've also previously recommended Mike Davis for this reading challenge. He was a prolific writer, and while my first recommendation was in the books about cities category, he also wrote books about other subjects that are very much worth reading, such as his classic book on the American working class, Prisoners of the American Dream
4. The great British novelist, A.S. Byatt died last year. Her book Possession is one of my all-time favorite books. I re-read a few years ago for one of these reading challenges, and it was still just as fun as the first time. She's also the author of many other books that are probably also excellent.
5. Another great British novelist, and the winner of two Booker prizes, Hilary Mantel, who suffered from illness for most of her life, died in 2022. As the linked obituary reads, she is most well-known for her amazing historical novels about Thomas Cromwell, starting with Wolf Hall. I also loved her novel Beyond Black sort of like magical realism in British suburbia.
6. If you're looking for an excellent academic book to read by a recently deceased scholar of American empire, Amy Kaplan would be a wonderful author to read at this particular moment because of the way she brought together literary and cultural criticism and analysis of US foreign policy. Her 2018 book Our American Israel, would be an especially good choice this year.
7. Another great anti-imperialist writer was Sven Lindquist, who died in 2019. His short book Exterminate All the Brutes is one that most of my friends read when it first came out in translation. In it, he writes “We want genocide to have begun and ended with nazism....That is what is most comforting.”
8. If you'd rather read something lighter, try something by Barbara Neely, the author of the wonderful mystery series featuring Blanche White. This article from Lit Hub's "Crime Reads" newsletter explains her activist history and influence on a younger generation of Black women mystery writers.
9. If you want a mix of foreign policy commentary with genre fiction, you cannot do better than John Le Carre, who, like Neely, died in 2020. He certainly wrote plenty of books to choose from.
10. The last author whose work I've read and who I highly recommend in this category is the most recently deceased, Maryse Conde who died just last month. Her book I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, is one that I taught when I was still teaching literature classes. You can read Lit Hub's profile of her at the link above.
11. Speaking of Lit Hub, I suggest reviewing their annual summaries of notable literary deaths I found out more about recently-deceased Syrian author, Khaled Khalifa by reviewing those lists this morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment