VPL - salt - Book Recommendations for PuSH International Performing Arts Festival (Jan 17–Feb 3, 2019)Like this list

10 items

• Beloved

  Morrison, Toni

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  Escaped slave Sethe lives in Ohio, but remains haunted by her former life and by the ghosts of her past. This classic by Nobel Laureate Morrison explores the legacy of slavery and its heartbreaking repercussions.

• The Book of Night Women

  James, Marlon, 1970-

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  A girl named Lilith, born on a sugar plantation in Jamaica, becomes the focus of a powerful hope of rebellion in this beautifully-written novel.

• The Known World

  Jones, Edward P.

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  In Virginia, Henry Townsend, a former slave who runs a successful farm while under the protection of a powerful white landowner, dies suddenly, and it falls to his widow to take responsibility.

• Kindred

  Butler, Octavia E.

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  A modern African-American women is celebrating her 26th birthday when she time travels back to the American South and is drawn into the life of her ancestor Rufus, repeatedly saving his life as his plantation world keeps calling her back.

• Homegoing

  Gyasi, Yaa

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  Two half-sisters, born in different Ghanaian villages, take different paths – one lives a privileged life and the other is captured and sold into slavery. The novel follows them and the lives of their descendants over eight generations.

• The Long Song

  Levy, Andrea, 1956-2019

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  The story of Miss July, born during the last years of slavery in Jamaica, and renamed Marguerite by her mistress, is funny and heartbreaking.

• The Lonely Londoners

  Selvon, Samuel

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  Samuel Selvon's The Lonely Londoners was one of several books that influenced Michael Ondaatje. Here are a few of his remarks: "In any case there is never just one book. But maybe where all these books somehow meet is where the influence…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Viola Desmond's Canada

  a History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land

  Reynolds, Graham, 1944-

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  Viola Desmond was recently selected as the first Canadian woman to grace a banknote. Viola Desmond's Canada not only tells the story of her brave act of defiance in the face of discrimination, but also offers a broader look at a historical…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Amazing Grace

  An Anthology of Poems About Slavery, 1660-1810

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  More than 400 poems are collected here, from poets famous and unknown, all written during the height of the slave trade to the beginning of its reconsideration. The human spirit, with all its contradiction, resilience, and grief, is here…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Social Life of DNA

  Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome

  Nelson, Alondra

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  A fascinating account of how DNA analysis is allowing the descendants of people who were torn from their culture to find a sense of kinship and healing from the discovery of their genetic makeup.