A Read Black Girl @areadblackgirl - Tumblr Blog

“Read, read, read. Read everything," said William Falkner in a 1956 The Paris Review interview; "trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” The 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲 newsletter is the result of my taking Faulkner's advise. Each Friday morning I send a short email about the book I have just been reading. It's informative, thought-provoking, designed to help you make better reading decisions. Sign up here: https://areadblackgirl.wordpress.com/read/

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Hello World!

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Men Don't Cry by Faïza Guène

How many of us grow up promising ourselves that no matter what happens in life we should never be the people our mothers were, or our fathers? To begin on the back foot, is what I call it, to be driven by the conviction to not be what they are to you.

How many of us grow up promising ourselves that no matter what happens in life we should never be the people our mothers were, or our fathers? To begin on the back foot, is what I’ve always called it, to be driven by the conviction to not be what they were to you. It’s a terrible place to start your own life, I should know. You have no map, no benchmark, and most often than not have never…

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The World Looks Like This From Here by Kopano Ratele

Talking for us as a people has for generations been at the centre of healing, where, unlike the western notion where a doctor would ask what the matter is, run some tests and diagnose, a sickly person would suit with others for hours on end, sometimes to get to the core of their affliction, other times to simply be in companionship during the tumultuous period. In the introduction to all The…

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Tokoloshe by Johan Botha

Death, death, gut-chruning death all about, accompanied by the dum du-dum du-dum of ancient drumming, feeding on the secrets, lies, injustices and innocence of the victims. It is a story of reviving the evil in each of us and showing it to the light.

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Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T.L. Huchu

Reading Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments took me back to Edinburgh, that magical city. That place of castles and grand views, water and slums on the very edge of it all... a few centuries and a great bout of logic removed.

Girlxoxo Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments is based in Edinburgh, the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature, and for that reason my favourite place away from home. On my visit to the city some years ago I coaxed my team into exploring the city by planning a 30km hike from the Market Street Hotel where we were staying, up and around Holyrood Park, and down to Portobello on the one day. Pub hops…

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Going to war for the affections of men

My book selection process is random, if anything, and I wouldn’t read if it wasn’t. I’m an erratic reader and I pick up books depending on what I feel in that moment and what’s available for me to pick up I. I don’t make lists anymore because I’ve never kept them, and can go long periods without reading anything, only to come back and read everything in front of me. The books I’m currently…

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Ain't I A Woman?

The Capital Times In the introduction to All About Love, bell hooks writes about how it is most often men who theorise about love, and how they do this from a basis of fantasy because what men dream up is seen as creating reality, while female fantasy is seen rather as just a firm of escape.This made me think about make autonomy in the subject and how our ideas of love have for centuries been…

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Show me how to do like you: Dialogism in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

This essay argues the importance of Bakhtin’s contribution to literary studies, with specific reference to Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982), by examining the idea of polyphony, and discussing discussing the concept of heteroglossia.

Introduction Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) is known to have made significant contributions to the vocabulary of literary criticism and is lauded for his radical philosophy of language, as well as his theory of the novel—which is underpinned by the concepts of “dialogism,” “polyphony,” and “carnivalization”. Focusing on the dialogism and polyphony, this essay argues the importance of Bakhtin’s…

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#books

Sunday

Living without electricity has meant that my gadgets are always on the verge of dead, or already down under. Boy, was I glad when I thought of a brilliant introduction to this month’s reading wrap-up, and immediately grabbed my laptop to write it down before it was buried forever in my weedy memory. You know that feeling? When your mind randomly gifts you an ingenious plot for your upcoming…

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Friday

Bente I read a large chunk of Nick Hornby’s Stuff I’ve Been Reading in the waiting room of the same hospital that my mother drove me to on a hot January night back in 2017. While the tables have turned, with me being the one to wheel her into the emergency room, I sat there thinking about how she had driven out that night with a diagnosis of mild depression and the notice of a pregnancy. She did…

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One of the hardest things for me, even though it happens so often, is to accept that I am not in control... not at all.

I started the year on a high and planned an entire writing on healing series, even had a 52 piece reading list ordered. I was forced, at the beginning of this month to take a step back from all of this and focus on one of the biggest moves of my life. Thinking I’d bounce back in a week or two, I announced a haitus.

It’s been four weeks, and I’m nowhere near settled. If I’m not pushing a wheelbarrow full of river sand, or building the composting toilet, you’ll find me kneading dough for diphaphatha (which have seen us abandon store-bought bread).

Control is a farce, just as acceptance is key to having things fall right into place.

Nkagiseng sechaba. Se ate, se atlege, ka tebello, tumelo, le lerato. E nne marothodi a bontle, a lesedi mo lefatsheng le le aparetseng ke lefifi. Ga fela ele thato ya modimo. Ga gonne jalo.

This is my prayer.

I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel

Currently Reading 5/52 of my 2022 Reading Challenge: A Year of Tsundoku.

Words of Welcome Currently Reading 5/52 of my 2022 Reading Challenge: A Year of Tsundoku From the blurb: For so many people, reading isn’t just a hobby or a way to pass the time – it’s a lifestyle. Our books shape us, define us, enchant us, and even sometimes infuriate us. Our books are a part of who we are as people, and we can’t imagine life without them.I’d Rather Be Reading is the perfect…

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SELF-REGULATE

This trains you to be gentle towards yourself and helps to build up a relationship that is characterised by being gentle, caring, kind and nurturing of the self. Keep it in mind for whenever you feel misaligned.

Donald Epstein is a Chiropractor and has written The 12 Stages of Healing with the mission of showing how to promote greater health in our bodies and harmony in our relationships. At the end of the first chapter he shares a self-holding exercise. The goal of the exercise is to calm the nervous system, bring the self back into the body, develop more body awareness, and train the own nervous system…

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BE YOUR OWN HERO

Nothing is permanent, not even pain. In my language we say that se s e sa feleng se a hlola (what which does not have an end is surely abnormal). Hardships are a normal part of life’s progression, and they will end.

When you begin to identify yourself as the hero in your own life, the one responsible for saving your from your turmoil, you begin to enter into the second stage of healing. Adopt survivor mentality to do this – a frame of mind that promotes self-empowerment and the ability to overcome traumatic events. Focusing on your ability to survive rather than seeing yourself a victim can help you prevail…

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CONCEDE

Conceding doesn’t mean it’s ok. It means you are acknowledging the reality of a situation and deciding to take whatever positive action you can from that position.

According to Donald Epstein, the simple acknowledgement of your helplessness in the first stage of healing is most often enough for the sufferer to begin completion of this stage. This chapter in The 12 Stages of Healing is about accepting the reality of the situation and the truth of the ordeals we’ve suffered. Through conscious surrender, we let go of all those things we feel we need to get…

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