1-3: Morrison, Senapati, Seibles

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Morrison, Toni. Jazz.

The short: Jazz is a story told in the aftermath of a murder. Set in the City during Jim Crow era United States, it looks back on the love triangle that led up to the murder, and even further back into the families, childhoods, and tragedies that brought them to the City.

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Senapati, Fakir Mohan. Six Acres and a Third.

The short: Six Acres and a Third is a satirical 19th century novel set in Orissa, India, detailing the rise and fall of a crooked moneylender, a Zamindar named Ramachandra Mangaraj. Over the course of the story the reader gets a crash course in the crooked and unjust power structure which exists on many levels in the Oriya village it is set in. And all of this is told in the deceptively light and humorous voice of Senapati's narrator. Recommended.

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Seibles, Tim. Buffalo Head Solos.

The short: A collection of poetry released in 2004 by contemporary African-American poet Tim Seibles. In the introduction to the poems, Seibles makes a point of challenging his readers and other poets to carry poetry and its message out to the world and make it relevant in their lives, saying: “Doesn't a working Democracy require a full-hearted willingness to voice everything, to insist upon a chance for the most hopeful outcomes? Isn't the current prevalence of smiling apathy and timid speech an emblem of a whelming fascism?” (xiv). Which means I liked him before I had even read a poem, even if he does edge a little close to Godwin's.

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