Black Writers

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There are two black writers, actually 3, I bother with: Chester Himes, and Zora Neale Hurston. The rest aren't worth shit.

 

[DesEsseintes]

Except I think you said you liked Dhalgren. So you can like the novel but not the author?

 

[DesEsseintes]

Off the top of my head, Ben Okri and Chinua Achebe are both wonderful writers, too, as is Derek Walcott.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Off the top of my head, Ben Okri and Chinua Achebe are both wonderful writers, too, as is Derek Walcott.

I have no idea who Dahlgren is, new one to me. I go outta my way to read black noir.

 

[DesEsseintes]

Ah, sorry - my mistake. Someone posting below you in a thread mentioned it.

 

[karaline]

There are two black writers, actually 3, I bother with: Chester Himes, and Zora Neale Hurston. The rest aren't worth shit.

I can only see two names, am I being a bit dim?

 

[karaline]

Off the top of my head, Ben Okri and Chinua Achebe are both wonderful writers, too, as is Derek Walcott.

I've never read any Achebe but I LOVED The Famished Road, one of the best books I've ever read.

I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is also good, and Toni Morrison is amazing and Maya Angelou. I guess we all have different tastes though.

 

[DesEsseintes]

Yes, The Famished Road is absolutely beautiful - worth reading in conjunction with Will Self's How the Dead Live for a different view of the afterlife's waiting room.

Achebe is well worth discovering, I think - his classic is Things Fall Apart, about the breakdown of traditional Nigerian society in the face of encroaching colonialism. I found it very moving, and I don't say that of many novels.

I do like the fact that we are, in effect, colonizing Mr Johnson's borderline racist thread (in the context of his other offerings, perhaps less borderline) by discussing black writers we have known and loved. It should be a liberal duty to add to this thread now - it might become like a 60s sit-in.

Alternatively, I may be misjudging, and Mr Johnson may even now be taking notes and adding to his Christmas wish-list. I do hope so.

How do you do, by the way? <Offers hand.> Des Esseintes here.

 

[karaline]

Yes, The Famished Road is absolutely beautiful - worth reading in conjunction with Will Self's How the Dead Live for a different view of the afterlife's waiting room.

Achebe is well worth discovering, I think - his classic is Things Fall Apart, about the breakdown of traditional Nigerian society in the face of encroaching colonialism. I found it very moving, and I don't say that of many novels.

I do like the fact that we are, in effect, colonizing Mr Johnson's borderline racist thread (in the context of his other offerings, perhaps less borderline) by discussing black writers we have known and loved. It should be a liberal duty to add to this thread now - it might become like a 60s sit-in.

Alternatively, I may be misjudging, and Mr Johnson may even now be taking notes and adding to his Christmas wish-list. I do hope so.

How do you do, by the way? <Offers hand.> Des Esseintes here.

I've never read any of Will Self's novels, not sure why not. I have read articles he's written and I've mainly liked them.

Yes, I did wonder at why someone would choose to single out black authors, not sure why something as arbitrary as the colour of your skin should effect the quality of your writing.

Pleased to meet you too.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've never read any of Will Self's novels, not sure why not. I have read articles he's written and I've mainly liked them.

Yes, I did wonder at why someone would choose to single out black authors, not sure why something as arbitrary as the colour of your skin should effect the quality of your writing.

Pleased to meet you too.

Skin color definitely has no effect on basket ball or Quickie Mart holdups or track.

 

[lovecraft68]

I look at authors the way I look at friends. MY friends are not black, Asian, male, female, gay straight, they're just friends....

Same thing for anything else, why does the race, color, gender matter when it comes to reading or liking a book?

 

[Sammael Bard]

Same thing for anything else, why does the race, color, gender matter when it comes to reading or liking a book?

It matters when the person in question is fulla shit.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

I look at authors the way I look at friends. MY friends are not black, Asian, male, female, gay straight, they're just friends....

Same thing for anything else, why does the race, color, gender matter when it comes to reading or liking a book?

It matters a lot to me when it comes to the experiences that the author is writing about, even in fiction. If what you love about urban noir, for example, is its no-nonsense verisimilitude, Greek tragedy in street language, then I want someone who's writing from the experience of listening to their cousins and aunties talk on the porch a thousand times, not someone who watched some Tyler Perry movies to get in the groove. Of course, for as brilliant a Chinua Achebe is (and lord, is he - "Arrow of God" is my pick over "Things Fall Apart"), he can't write that, either, without being a tourist in someone else's reality.

 

[NickiC]

I don't really care about that. I like reading good quality writing. But sometimes I read a true experience and I don't expect good writing but it is a story being told and I respect that. I read a book about an African woman who lived in a bathroom with several other people for a very long time in Uganda hiding. Was she ever going to win the New York Times writing award? No. But the story was so compelling that I didn't care. As far as African American writers I like Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes who is more a poet but I like and Alice Walker.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I look at authors the way I look at friends. MY friends are not black, Asian, male, female, gay straight, they're just friends....

Same thing for anything else, why does the race, color, gender matter when it comes to reading or liking a book?

Jack, youre fulla shit. Its all politicized. Race, religion, sex, vocation, school, ethnicity. You name it and IT has a lobbyist and national club. Even the goddamned Mayflower Society discriminates against crew when it comes to membership. Passengers only.

 

[MichaelinChina]

I don't really care about that. I like reading good quality writing. But sometimes I read a true experience and I don't expect good writing but it is a story being told and I respect that. I read a book about an African woman who lived in a bathroom with several other people for a very long time in Uganda hiding. Was she ever going to win the New York Times writing award? No. But the story was so compelling that I didn't care. As far as African American writers I like Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes who is more a poet but I like and Alice Walker.

Alice Walker is the new Maya Angelou.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Alice Walker is the new Maya Angelou.

Oh the blacks will always have mossbacks who haven't done shit lately, and were nuthin to write home about back when.

What makes me laugh is the outrage heaped upon Joel Chandler Harris for collecting the old Negro fables, and the praise Zora Neale Hurston got for doing the same.