“
There are a lot of readers who pride themselves on not paying attention to the identities of their favorite writers. Some of them think this means they’re not prejudiced. I don’t know anyone who isn’t, myself included. But let’s say for argument’s sake that those particular readers in fact are not prejudiced. How many books by writers of color do you think you’ll find on their bookshelves? I’d lay odds that if there are any at all, they will be far outnumbered by the books by white authors. Not necessarily because those readers are deliberately choosing mostly white/male authors. They don’t have to. The status quo does it for them. So those readers’ self-satisfied “I don’t know” is really an “I don’t care enough to look beyond my nose.”
And that’s cool. So many causes, so little time. But don’t pretend that indifference and an unwillingness to make positive change constitute enlightenment.
”– Nalo Hopkinson, interviewed by Terry Bisson (via tangledaxon)
#nalo hopkinson
black slingbacks with lucite heels that have brass lions on them
look at nalo hopkinson’s new shoes, guise
Black Women in Speculative Fiction: An Investigation »
Because there’s more black women sf writers than Octavia Butler—profiles of several women in the field.
Via @nkjemisin.
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The Chaos By Nalo Hopkinson (McElderry; ISBN: 9781416954880; April 2012)
Noted for her fantasy and science fiction for adults, Hopkinson jumps triumphantly to teen literature.
Scotch’s womanly build and mixed heritage (white Jamaican dad, black American mom) made her the target of small-town school bullies. Since moving to Toronto, she’s found friends and status. Now both are threatened by the mysterious sticky black spots on her skin (she hides them under her clothes but they’re growing). When a giant bubble appears at an open-mic event, Scotch dares her brother, Rich, to touch it. He disappears, a volcano rises from Lake Ontario and chaos ripples across city and world, transforming reality in ways bizarre and hilarious, benign and malignant. A lesbian folksinger with Tamil roots becomes a purple triangle with an elephant’s trunk; jelly beans grow teeth; buried streams resurface. Scotch searches for Rich across a surreal, sensual cityscape informed by Caribbean and Russian folklore. Although what they represent and where they come from are open to interpretation, the manifestations are real to everyone and must be dealt with. Hopkinson opens her YA debut conventionally but soon finds her own path, creating a unique vocabulary with which to explore and express personal identity in its myriad forms and fluidity. Anything but essentialist, she captures her characters in the act of becoming. Rich in voice, humor and dazzling imagery, studded with edgy ideas and wildly original, this multicultural mashup—like its heroine—defies category.
”
If Ariel wasn’t white.
For a not-white take on mermaids, I suggest Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms. It’s more in the vein of what you’d call magic realism than straight-up fantasy, I guess. The protagonist is an older woman, which is rare and nice to see.
This week’s Once and Future Podcast features macabre stories, including “Blushing” by WUH favourite Nalo Hopkinson. (Via Twitter.)
Transdisciplinary Seminar on Afrofuturism Lecture Series at Parsons, School of AMT
The Transdisciplinary Seminar on Afrofuturism will explore how representations of science, technology and social engineering intersect with visual cultural expressions of the African diaspora. Science fiction is the organizing trope that will unite all the guest presentations and works under consideration. Visiting artists and cultural theorists will lecture on the role of futuristic projection in African diasporic art, liteature, film and music. The expediency of science fiction as both a fractured mirror of historical experience and a projection of the collective desires of a displaced people will be discussed throughout the semester.
The Transdisciplinary Seminar on Afrofuturism features seven public lectures by guest artists and cultural theorists in the fall of 2011. These lectures are open to the public and will take place on Tuesdays at 6pm. The public lectures that are part of this seminar are produced with support from The Robert Lehman Foundation.
September 20: Alondra Nelson
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueOctober 4: Julie Mehretu
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueOctober 11: George Lewis
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueOctober 25: Kodwo Eshun
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueNovember 15: Keith and Mendi Obadike
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueNovember 29: Nalo Hopkinson
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th AvenueDecember 6: Wanuri Kahui
Location: Kellen Auditorium, Lobby 66 5th Avenue
This is in New York City, by the way. *sighs wistfully*
megwrites » Review: Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson »
Nalo Hopkinson two-fer!
This is novel is just as much about Tan Tan reclaiming her own narrative and becoming her own narrator as it is about her physical survival. Indeed, the entire thing is about tracing how she goes from being the person who is told things to the person doing the telling in her own life. At the beginning we a child who has the world impressed upon her, who is told story after story, even about herself, then a troubled adolescent who begins to invent another Tan Tan but in the process is understanding how to invent another self, and finally to a strong young woman who has the strength to tell her story, on her terms, in her way to save her own life, who creates herself as she wants to be.
brown girl in the ring
read in one sitting, brown girl in the ring by nalo hopkinson yesterday.
i had meant to only read a chapter or two and then get back to IMPORTANT things, but i was so hungry to finish it.
love that the protagonist is a young caribbean-canadian, single mother of a young babe. that she struggles with bonding and breastfeeding. this is a story about the complexity of mothering. none of the mothers are perfect… a story about intergenerational love and violence.
also loved the post apocalyptic vision of toronto where all the white folks have moved outside of the city leaving the rest to fend for themselves. for me provides a nice compare/contrast to reading deep green resistance. and the shared views on the ensuing apocalypse.
loved that the destruction of toronto was caused by the indigenous folk backed by international human rights groups taking back their land autonomy, and refusing to share their natural resources with toront, which causes an economic collapse. illustration of how present day civilization literally lives off of stolen land.
and that the protagonist was a seer. that i could relate to. yeah a mama seer.
there were a few moments in the novel when i was surprised that one of the characters didnt pick up on something which seemed glaringly obvious. so maybe the foreshadowing was a little overdone at times.
and sometimes the language seemed overdone as well. for instance, ‘it crept up silently, the fog that only she could see…’
—umm…is fog ever noisy? and doesnt the verb ‘crept’ already imply that it would move silently…?
anyways, a visionary novel. a great read. and now i just have to figure out which book of hers i am going to read next, skin folk? or the salt roads?
Nalo Hopkinson, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
Because of the work that many people did before me to bring women’s voices to the field, I’m able to inhabit a science fiction community of my choice, where women are well represented in the writing, amongst the writers and in the discourse. But it’s still perfectly possible to be an SF aficionado and never encounter that side of the genre. It’s still perfectly possible to be told that women don’t write good SF, that we’re better at fantasy. Which is a crock. One thing I learned from working for years as a grants officer for an arts council is that if you have one set of traditional markers for assessing excellence in a particular art form, you will likely not recognize excellence from a tradition that uses another set of markers. Writing by women speaks to a different — though overlapping — set of realities than writing by men. Fully appreciating it takes learning to understand those realities.
