Looking for a list of good books to read? We have one for you.
In the summer of 2014, Barrelhouse and RAWI (The Radius of Arab American Writers) jointly sponsored an online fiction workshop led by Barrelhouse editor Susan Muaddi Darraj focusing on “writing about race and ethnicity.” Part of the impetus for the workshop was the growing awareness that writers of color often feel misunderstood and unappreciated in the typical MFA classroom.
The online workshop filled quickly, and students enjoyed a lively atmosphere in which they critiqued their stories and novels-in-progress in a supportive atmosphere.
One question that arose in the discussion boards was: What writer of color influenced you and should be on a required reading list?
That list, generated by the instructor and several of the students follows below. Entries marked with an asterisk indicate writers who received multiple recommendations.
Susan will lead a general fiction online workshop beginning on October 6th. Details and registration are available here. Susan Muaddi Darraj is the author of The Inheritance of Exile, a short story collection that won ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. She is on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing program. Her forthcoming book, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named winner of the 2014 Grace Paley Award for Fiction by the AWP. She is an editor at Barrelhouse magazine, and co-founder of the annual Conversations & Connections writers conference in Washington, DC.
Recommended by Susan Muaddi Darraj
Arabian Jazz by Diana AbuJaber
How to Leave Hialeh by Jennine Capo Crucet
The Aguero Sisters by Christina Garcia
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat*
The Word: Black Writers Talk about the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing by Marita Golden
DeNiro’s Game by Rawi Hage
A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar
What You Call Winter by Nalini Jones
The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim
Great House by Nicole Krauss
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry*
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth*
In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif
Recommended by Preeti Kaur
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat*
How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique
Recommended by Sameena Usmani
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
The Spectacle of Accumulation: Essays in Media, Culture & Politics by Sut Jhally
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry*
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Race Matters, The Cornel West Reader, and other books by Cornel West
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
Recommended by Sohrab Fracis
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
Drown by Junot Diaz
Shahnameh, Book of Kings by Abolquasem Ferdowsi
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Swimming Lessons: Tales of Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry*
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry*
Darkness by Bharati Mukherjee
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami*
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
The Vendor of Sweets by R.K. Narayan
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth*
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth*
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Recommended by May Kuroiwa
"In a Bamboo Grove" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Poems by Garrett Hongo
Palm of the Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
The Kumulipo by Queen Liliuokalani
Stories by Yukio Mishima
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
Books by Haruki Murakami*
Stories by Yoko Ogawa
Cane by Jean Toomer
Fools Crow by James Welch
Heads by Harry by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Stories by Banana Yoshimoto
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash