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Culture August 8, 2016
For many people, literature is the foundation of a vivid, inner world. It allows men and women anywhere to escape into stories they could never possibly imagine. Stories can even change how people view themselves.
In 2016, and especially in a country as culturally diverse as the United States, it is becoming increasingly necessary for individuals to feel as if they have a place where they belong. As Chimamanda Adichie in her TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” describes, “Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books, by their very nature, had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.”
Representation from all cultures and backgrounds in literature is vital. People need to see a reflection of themselves in the world in order to feel like a valuable part of humanity. Moreover, it is just as crucial to be able to step outside of one’s singular perspective and grasp the reality of how other people live. Here are five good books to read that illustrate the significance and power of diversity in modern writing.
A profound and compelling story about race and identity that crosses borders both culturally and spiritually, “Americanah” tells the tale of a young couple named Ifemelu and Obinze who are separated when they leave their homeland of military-run Nigeria for the West. Confident and ambitious, Ifemelu heads for America, where she is forced to confront the reality of race relations and what it means to be black in the United States. Devoted and reserved, Obinze plans to join her until their relationship falls apart, prompting him to start a new and haphazard life in London. Fifteen years later the pair meets once again, this time in a newly liberated Nigeria full of possibilities.
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974…My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”
Thus begins the remarkable story of Calliope Stephanides and the multi-generation Greek family that departs its home village near Mount Olympus in favor of 1920s Detroit, Michigan. From the time of Detroit’s Motor City glory days all the way through the violent race riots of the 1960s and beyond, this book is compelling —both personally and politically. When Calliope discovers a family secret that explains why she is not like the other girls, a revelation occurs that results in a drastic change of self-perception. Riveting and marvelous, “Middlesex” is a groundbreaking look at the intricacies of gender and family identity.
Devastatingly beautiful and haunting, “The Bluest Eye” is Toni Morrison’s first novel, telling the story of Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old black girl living in Ohio. Wishing to be as valued and loved as all the blond-haired, blue-eyed American children, Pecola desperately longs for her eyes to turn blue. However, when change does come, it is in the form of a deep tragedy. Heart-wrenching and powerful, this novel stands as one of Toni Morrison’s most unforgettable works.
“The house, in a quiet part of Mexico City, had a study within, and in the study he found a solitude he had never known before and would never know again. Cigarettes (he smoked 60 a day) were on the worktable. LPs were on the record player: Debussy, Bartók, A Hard Day’s Night . . . Outside, it was the 1960s; inside, it was the deep time of the pre-modern Americas, and the author at his typewriter was all-powerful.”
Not only did author Gabriel García Márquez create a work of beautiful fiction that bears the spirit of humanity, he revolutionized the literary world. A novel based in magical realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” depicts the ebb and flow of the town of Macondo through the eyes of one family. Through the lenses of legend, tradition, and myth, Márquez successfully depicts the reality of the human condition, the history and beauty of Latin America, and the universal search for truth and love.
“Okay, so now you know that I’m a cartoonist. And I think I’m pretty good at it, too. But no matter how good I am, my cartoons will never take the place of food or money . . . I wish I were magical, but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation.”
Beautifully written, hilarious, and breathtakingly tragic, Sherman Alexie brings to life his own personal experiences growing up as a Native American. The novel is semi-autobiographical, telling the story of Junior, an American Indian boy attending an all-white school. With hopes of becoming a cartoonist one day, Junior chooses to leave his home on the Spokane Indian Reservation, bent upon breaking away from the direction his life was taking.
