Well, I'm a little behind (about three decades or so) but I read Dreaming in Cuban this year, and Celia on her neighborhood watch in her drop pearl earrings and red lipstick felt very familiar to me here in the so-called New South, and while my own grandmother is deceased, I like to think she'd feel much as Ceila did about Pilar's efforts to create and sustain her own private life and art.
As for 2021 books I read this year, I felt really moved and grateful for Peter Ho Davies' A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself. I'm not a parent myself, but I am very familiar with shame, and I so appreciated his courage and art in mining the pain of love.
Like a lot of the power-critics, I found Katie Kitamura's Intimacies pretty breathtaking... and I'll read anything by Adam Phillips, so On Wanting to Change, about the compulsion toward conversion experiences in largely Christian capitalist cultures was also really interesting as a lens on misogyny among certain elected leaders in the US and more broadly on uses of righteousness as a psychological defense...
I will have to read De Robertis and Obejas ! Thank you so much for this and for this space here. It feels like a real gift!!
Wow, I just made up my own list. Got it down to 10 fabulous books. Not necessarily 2021 titles but definitely the ones I read this year that I loved.
Cantoras, by Carolina de Robertis,
Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw,
The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wlikinson,
Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway,
The Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende,
A Taste of Sugar by Marisel Vera,
A Distant Marvel by Chantel Acevedo,
Water Dancer by Ta'heshi Coates,
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See and
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
What a fabulous list! Thank you for sharing Dahlma!
I loved The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman.
Well, I'm a little behind (about three decades or so) but I read Dreaming in Cuban this year, and Celia on her neighborhood watch in her drop pearl earrings and red lipstick felt very familiar to me here in the so-called New South, and while my own grandmother is deceased, I like to think she'd feel much as Ceila did about Pilar's efforts to create and sustain her own private life and art.
As for 2021 books I read this year, I felt really moved and grateful for Peter Ho Davies' A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself. I'm not a parent myself, but I am very familiar with shame, and I so appreciated his courage and art in mining the pain of love.
Like a lot of the power-critics, I found Katie Kitamura's Intimacies pretty breathtaking... and I'll read anything by Adam Phillips, so On Wanting to Change, about the compulsion toward conversion experiences in largely Christian capitalist cultures was also really interesting as a lens on misogyny among certain elected leaders in the US and more broadly on uses of righteousness as a psychological defense...
I will have to read De Robertis and Obejas ! Thank you so much for this and for this space here. It feels like a real gift!!
Wonderful suggestions—thanks so much! I look forward to catching up with these titles in the New Year!
And mil gracias for your kind words about Dreaming…