Hey everyone, welcome back to Fistful of Feminism!
My name is Monica and today, I want to talk about books!
SO MANY BOOKS.
If you were wondering, this is a new sweater from Asian AF.
They made a sweater version of this shirt!!!
Ahh!
So today I want to talk about books.
The reason I want to talk about books is..
I haven't really been able to read as much as I previously have in my life, this year,
at all.
For lots of different reasons.
I've been going through a hard emotional time this year.
I've felt like I haven't had any time, I've been working on solo shows, new upcoming shows,
grant writing, working full time, working MORE than full time.
Teaching, right now I'm teaching four classes.
So things are kind of a little all over the place.
But my partner Tony is back in Ottawa right now.
He is there for about a month before I go on a trip over there for ten days (to join
him).
And it's surprising how much your life changes when your partner is away, especially when
you live together and it's really really hard.
And sad.
But I promised him that when he was away I would be reading more.
I would use that time not just to relax and watch Netflix (which is totally valid! and
I've been doing that to kind of de-stress myself and make sure I'm taking care of myself)
but also to read a lot of the things that have been outstanding in our book pile.
We do this thing where we buy a shit ton of books, and then he slowly reads them and I
just go put them in a pile and know that I have to read them later.
A lot of people in my (social media) feeds and online are talking a lot about what we're
reading.
The content that we're consuming and how we can be more mindful about having bookshelves
that aren't just full of white authors.
So what I would like to share for you is my recommendations of novels, poetry, plays,
that are all written by women of colour.
I think that my bookshelf could always use more women of colour, so PLEASE, if you have
any recommendations for me, leave them down below in the comments.
I would be really excited to hear them.
So I'm going to break this down into 3 ish categories.
#1 being books I have fully read.
That might have been a long time ago, so I might be fuzzy on some of the details, but
I've read them.
#2 is books that I'm in progress of reading.
So I've read a little bit, or have read pieces of it, but I haven't read the full book.
And then #3 will be books that I haven't read, but I already know are going to be awesome
because I've read the authors previously, or I've heard amazing things, or my partner
has read them.
So I'm going to recommend all of them to you today.
1.
bell hooks We Real Cool!
Now if you are in any kind of gender studies, feminist studies, race studies, you know about
bell hooks.
bell hooks is basically one of the authors you have to read.
Any of her books are incredible.
In this book, she talks about Black men and masculinity, which was part of one of my university
classes, and she's done a really fantastic job of speaking to the specific intersections
of masculinity and blackness and how that affects Black men and how... basically gives
ways to combat the system of white supremacy and how that has (and continues) to affect
Black men.
And how love can help overcome this (imposed) system.
So, it's just a really amazing book, but anything by bell hooks should definitely be in your
bookshelf if you want to, at all, understand what social justice is.
So, bell hooks!
Another academic book that I read in school would be Undoing Border Imperialisms by Harsha
Walia.
This is the book that really started to help me understand what the hell borders were,
like, the construction of borders... exactly what it is, like border imperialism.
So, the enacting of borders and the security surronding them, the culture of deportation
is inherently imperial.
And she talks about how different communities of colour need to work with Indigenous nations,
wherever (those communities) are within colonial nation states, and how our liberations must
be tied together.
That's a pretty, like, oversimplification of this book.
This book is really incredible and goes into so much.
I now follow her on Facebook and she just like... her insights are incredible.
The posts that she makes on for instance International Women's Day, the things that she has to say
about the exclusions of that day, about racism, about interconnected systems of oppression.
Just like.... ahhh, she is incredible.
So, Harsha Walia!
Up next is one of my FAVOURITE playwrights ever who I got the chance to meet in Victoria,
which was oh my god...
I was so starstruck, is Marie Clements.
I have a lot of Marie Clements plays, this one is Tombs of the Vanishing Indian.
But she writes plays, she's a filmmaker, she made an opera that premiered in Victoria.
Her voice is just so apparent in her writing.
I would recommend all of her plays.
She gives such a beautiful theatrical artistic voice to Indigenous women.
I just cannot rave enough about Marie Clements.
You need her work on...
OH.
Phone call!
I answered the phone, and it was Tony... from Ottawa.
The next book I wanted to recommend is Vivek Shraya's Even this Page is White.
This is a beautiful poetry compilation, speaking about... well, the title pretty much speaks
to it.
"Even this page is white", how pervasive white supremacy is to the lives of people of colour,
her experience as a trans woman, dealing with realizing the internalized racism that you
carry with you as a young person and growing up later and realizing how much damage that
you did to both yourself, and other people of colour.
Through joking about things like anti-blackness and brownness and things like that.
So this is a really honest poetry compilation, I haven't read anything like it.
And the sections are just.. they really speak to themselves, like "white dreams", "white
speak", "how to talk to a white person", "the origins of skin", "brown dreams".
And the formatting of the poems is beautiful as well.
So it's really utilizing that white page space and making a statement about it.
And...
I don't know, I'm just like...
I have like, a couple more pages to go of these, but because it's a compilation of all
of these poems, you can kind of read them as you like.
But I've never read poetry like this before.
I am blown away by this book.
Ahhh!
Going back to plays, I just finished this play, even though I bought it so long ago.
Singkil!
By Catherine Hernandez.
I am buying more plays by Catherine Hernandez right now, they are shipping to me, I guess,
at some point.
But she is a Filipino playwright!
And obviously I have been on the hunt for Filipino plays and theatre for a very long
time.
I was getting this to look for monologues and characters that reflected who I am.
I definitely found one!
The main character is Mimi, and Mimi is a Filipino Canadian and her boyfriend is a white
Canadian.
Or, I think he can be played by any ethnicity.
Anyway, this is just a really beautiful look into family structures within Filipino families.
It's about her mom who recently passed away, who was a Singkil dancer.
Singkil is a filipino dance, a traditional dance, and it's really beautiful to watch.
But I specifically bought this play because the description talked about it being about
a filipino princess.
And as you pretty much know about me, I use the hashtag #pinayprincess, because that's
how I describe myself.
So I was really excited when I got this.
Catherine Hernandez is a phenomenal writer.
I love this play, and it premiered at Fu-Gen Theatre Company in Toronto.
And I just want to go there...
I just want to go there and take in all of their art...
I loved it.
So please put this on your bookshelf.
Okay, so those are all of the things I have fully completed, have read at another time,
I'm going to move on to the category of "Am currently reading".
The Hate U Give!
This book is already incredible.
I have heard so many raving reviews about it.
Ann-Bernice Thomas, who has been on my channel before, they recommended this to me, saying
it's such an important book.
It is a novel, so it's not quite a play like the books I was showing you, but even in the
first couple of pages, the characters voice is so strong and beautiful and descriptive.
And this is such an important book for everyone to read.
It centers a young Black woman, and a young dark-skinned Black woman, that is really really
important to this book.
It addresses police brutality, it talks about the murdering of young Black people in America,
I believe it's in America.
But anywhere, just, the themes in this book are exactly what we need to be talking about
right now.
Especially if you are not a Black person and you need to examine the anti-black racism
that has been engrained in everything you've learned about the world.
This is a novel that combats that.
So I'm really excited to keep reading this.
Tony already finished this one and I really want to finish it so that we can talk about
it.
So, it's a little bit thicker, but that's okay because it's a really fast read.
Once you get into it you just go go go go go.
So, Angie Thomas!
Another writer who I have read quite a lot of little bits of, but never a full book,
would be Roxanne Gay.
This is the Bad Feminist essays.
There is another hard cover book like this.
A lot of people know about Roxanne Gay already, but if you don't follow Roxanne Gay on Twitter,
you should, because they have the MOST hilarious Twitter feed.
Just responding to their trolls, and all like, the fatphobia those trolls throw at them...
it's the best thing.
So I don't really have too too much to say as I still have to finish all the essays in
here, but this is a writer you definitely should have.
I'm just throwing books around like this...
I'm really excited to finish these essays.
And the great thing about essay books is that, again, you can kind of go through one, put
it down, read another one later.
So, please read Roxanne Gay.
Okay, so those are the two that I'm currently reading right now.
One novel, one play, and one anthology that I haven't really gotten to, have maybe read
one page of one?
For instance.
So these are just other ones that I wanted to recommend.
1.
Medicine Shows: Indigenous Performance Culture by Yvette Nolan.
I have read Yvette Nolan before, some of the plays that she has written.
She's an Indigenous writer and playwright, and I love her plays.
She was also involved in Singkil when it premiered at Fu-Gen, the other play I was talking about.
This one is more of a book about Indigenous performance culture, so it has a lot of different
chapters about various plays that have been produced.
I've been really excited to read this book, I haven't gotten around to it yet.
But I'm really excited because as a theatre artist, I have a responsibility to know Indigenous
performance culture and to immerse myself in Indigenous performance and watch, and read,
and view, about the plays that are happening right now in Canada.
The next one is a play called Mother Tongue by Betty Quan.
Again, I have read like a page of this, but another incredible Asian-Canadian playwright.
I've heard a lot about them.
This is a really short play.
Look at how short that is!
But I can't wait to read the full play.
There is Cantonese, English and ASL in this play.
The last book is a novel that is blowing up right now, I've heard so much about it and
my partner just wants me to read this so so badly.
It is called the Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline.
And I don't really know anything about this book at this point.
I am just so excited to read it.
It's written by I believe a Metis author, yes she's Metis.
And it's just a really interesting narrative look into the future, I believe.
So that is everything that I am trying to read right now.
There are other things too that I'm trying to read.
Some other authors that I don't have the books with me right now would be Lee Maracle, Conversations
with Canadians.
That is a must read for anyone who thinks they identify as Canadian.
She's an Indigenous orator and playwright and artist, and just incredible.
She is the funniest human being on the planet.
Please read Lee Maracle, I have a bunch of books by her.
Leanne Simpson is another Indigenous author that you should know, writes a lot of academic
books.
We have a lot of those in the bookshelf too.
I couldn't show you absolutely everything, but there are so many artists and writers
of colour that you can have, in your home.
You have access to the work.
That you can put your money towards.
And a lot of people , you know, come to me and ask me about this.
"How can I actually become better?
How can I be anti-racist?"
It is literally so simple when all of these resources are out there for you.
And, even though I'm putting them forward, please go out and do the work yourself if
you don't have any artists of colour or writers of colour in your bookshelf.
That's your responsibility!
So go out there, and do it.
And again, please recommend any writers of colour down below.
Novels, academic books, plays, anything like that.
I would be so excited to hear about that.
And that is it for me today!
Thank you all for listening to my book recommendations.
If you like you can subscribe and go there and da da da.
I will see you all, when I see you all.
Okay, bye!
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