Need a Recommendation? Got a recommendation?

[sanguinity]

It's been nearly a month since the last one -- let's have another recs post!

First, a reminder that book club is coming up -- next weekend, April 19th, we're going to discuss Octavia Butler's Kindred. (Much thanks to nightchik for organizing it!)

Second, we've been adding stuff to the 50books_poc del.icio.us. (Again. Still. More.) Here's a bunch of the new stuff:

• Booklists
  • Legal Defense Fund Book Corner -- book reviews and commentary from the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. (Not all authors may be POC.)
    
  • The Root's Global Book List -- recommended recent books by black authors.
    
  • Mixedfolks.com Library -- Books about mixed-race people. Many authors are mixed-race POC, but not all.
    
  • Celebration of Women Writers -- both browsable and searchable by ethnicity and country. (They list "Muslim" as an ethnicity, which is kinda borked, but overall it's still got lots of good stuff.) Links to ebooks, too.
  
  
• POC-centric publishers:
  • Huia Publishers -- Māori books: novels, plays, histories, biographies, politics, and language; both adult and children.
    
  • Magabala Books -- Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, "Australia's oldest independent indigenous publishing house."
    
  • Indij Readers -- literacy materials for indigenous and non-indigenous Australian children learning to read and write.
    
  • African Writers Series -- UK publishing imprint
    
  • Peepal Tree Press -- Caribbean and Black British fiction, poetry, lit crit, memoirs, historical studies.
  
  
• Awards (children and young adult):
  • Baobab Prize -- African literature for children. Three categories: readers 8-11; readers 12-18; writers under 18.
    
  • Children's Africana Book Awards -- children's books about Africa published in the U.S. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Noma Award for Publishing in Africa
    
  • Tomás Rivera Book Award -- for books that authentically depict the lives of Mexican-Americans in the United States. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Américas Book Award -- "works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction" that "authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.""
    
  • Carter G. Woodson Book Award -- social science books that depict ethnicity and/or race relations in the United States
  
  
• Awards (adult):
  • Fonlon-Nichols Award -- given by the African Literature Association, for "excellence in creating writing and contributions to the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression"
    
  • Caine Prize for African Writing -- African literary prize for short stories. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Booker Prize -- best novel published in the British Commonwealth. (Not all authors are POC).
    
  • Commonwealth Writers' Prize -- best book and best first book in the British Commonwealth. Finalists are selected by region, which makes the list of finalists for the past 20 years (pdf) pretty darn awesome. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Noma Award for Publishing in Africa -- awards for scholarly/academic, children's, and literature.
  
  
• Online Literary Journals
  • Sable -- for new writers of color; international. Mostly print, but occasional full-text stories and articles are published on the website.
    
  • African Writing Online -- creative short fiction, essays, poetry, drama and art primarily from African writers and artists; published in the U.K.
    
  • Meskot -- Ethiopian online literary journal.
    
  • Kwani? -- Kenyan online literary magazine.
    
  • Sea Breeze -- Liberian online literary magazine.
    
  • One Ghana, One Voice -- blog for Ganaian poetry; new poem published every week.
  
  
• Other Resources for African Writers
  • BBC - Africa Beyond -- "African arts and culture in the UK and beyond." Includes regular features about writers and poets.
    
  • African Philosophy Resources -- "philosophy which focuses on Africa, philosophy done in Africa, and philosophy that is part of the traditional conversation among African philosophers."
    
  • African Children's Literature -- article about children's lit in Africa, includes bibliography (not all authors are POC)
    
  • Gambian Writers
  
  
• Publishing Industry
  • WriteBlack -- "Welcome to WriteBlack, where I write about the vagaries of the publishing industry and occasionally praise, occasionally criticize and always pick the nits of books written by black authors — with special attention paid to genre writers. "
    
  • GalleyCat - People of Color -- weekly column featuring people of color in the publishing industry: books, authors, agents, publicists, etc.
  
  
• Other Stuff
  • Literary Obama -- Books about the Obamas! Books by the Obamas! Books that inspire the Obamas! Books! Obamas! Books! (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Crossroads - Over the Road -- Korean science fiction stories online (!)
    
  • Color Online -- Blog focusing on young women of color. Book reviews, poetry, festivals, and more.
    
  • Interntional Romani Writers' Association
    
  • Destination: Salon Literary Guide to the World -- articles recommending books about various countries, takes a "virtual tourism" perspective. (At best, only half the authors in any given list are POC.)

In addition to the ebooks tag (which has new links as of April 3rd, not all of which are listed above), there's now an eshortworks tag. I added an academic tag because I know someone (sorry, I've forgotten who!) was looking for academic-voiced resources, and there's a poc-centric-booksellers tag for people who are trying to make conscious decisions about where they spend their money.

If you have a link to add, either drop it in the comments here or:

1. Add 50books_poc to your del.icio.us network.
2. Save the link to your account and tag it "for:50books_poc".

On to the recs! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic -- or simply want to say, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" -- leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you. ;-)

Comments

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I've had great success in ordering from Zubaan Books (http://www.zubaanbooks.com/zubaan_profile.asp?TxtFile=ZubaanProfile), based in India.

They are a feminist publishing house, and their booklist includes fiction and non-fiction books written by South Asian women. Most books in their catalogue are either originally written in English or have been translated into English.

[sanguinity]

Added! Thanks!

A cartoonist of color

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.kchronicles.com/

Re: A cartoonist of color

[sanguinity]

Added!

[elf]

A publisher: Black Science Fiction Store. Ebooks:
http://www.blacksciencefictionstore.com/#/ebookbooks/4533192195

A blog: African American Electronic Literary Network

[sanguinity]

Sweet!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

This is obscure, but I would really like some Sri Lankan folk stories or fairytales. If anyone has some recs, I'd be deeply deeply grateful.

[sanguinity]

Mmm... Not personal recs, because I haven't read any of these, but poking around the net:

Chandrani Wamasuriya has a pair of books available.

It looks like Manel Ratnatunga published a few books, but they seem to be hard to get. Here's an Indian source, but the bookseller requires a $US60 minimum order, if I'm understanding correctly.

Papyrus books out of Australia has Andare, by Geetha Premaratne. I have no idea how easy that may be find in the U.K. (which is where you are?), or what shipping may cost.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I am UK based, but I'll have a poke and see if any of those can be made to work for me. :)