Blues City – 3/5 Stars Here’s what I learned from this book: Ishmael Reed really hates Jerry Brown. It’s a special kind of hatred too, one reserved by someone on the far-left for someone not left enough. That’s the secret of the Left, destroy those close to you but not close enough. I don’t think Ishmael Reed is an ideological purist by any means. His politics comes across as too messy and stitched together for that. It’s a kind of untenable utopian thinking that based […]
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” ― Audre Lorde: I can’t quit political writing.
4/5 Stars Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican novelist who spent the years of 2013ish-2017ish working and writing in the United States with her husband, fellow novelist Alvaro Enrigue, and their children. As she applied and waited for a work visa and Green Card, she spent her time working as a translator for nonprofit immigrant legal services organizations. Her job was to translate for and conduct interviews with recent immigrant children from Spanish speaking countries who found themselves in a legal nightmarish limbo. She explains that […]