1 READING FOR INSPIRATION AND TRANSFORMATION (“De-colonising our Minds”) A BOOKLIST CREATED AT THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY DIALOGUE 14 (RWANDA), 2019 The idea for this list grew out of a conversation during the Global Community Dialogue (14) in Rwanda in September 2019; the discussion was between Lynda White, Natasha Aruliah, John Cornwell and Ganza Kanamugire. Very soon other group members became involved in the discussions and made their own suggestions and contributions. In particular this list is an endeavour to capture and experience different voices, other than those we frequently hear, the dominant White, Western narrative, in order for us to support our own learning and accountability to de-colonising and anti-racism. Black1 authors have specifically been separated from white authors, and fiction and story from non-fiction and theory (the white supremacy value of the ‘objective’ written word). This list gives us authors that reflect experiences to give us a more global view of our world, its’ cultures, issues and the people in it. The list of Non-Fiction, is a broad category that includes memoirs/autobiography, as well as an effort to add some leadership, organization development, business and change titles to the list. These are not in any order and in no way have they been vetted by us or others. As we began to put together a list from recommendations from our Global Community Dialogue Group, there was an intention to check author’s backgrounds, and country/heritage of origin and current citizenship/country of residence, together with additional books they may have written. As we worked on this, we also started to discover other authors, which led to this being a much longer list than anticipated – and for all of us, an exciting list as there were many new discoveries for us to also seek out for reading! Additionally, as we listed authors known to us and discovered new authors, we became aware that many of these people have won significant literary prizes for their work, including such as Nobel, Pulitzer, Caine Prize for African writing, Commonwealth, Man Booker, Giller, Jnanpith, JCB Prize, Sahitya Akademi, among others. It is our intention also that the list should grow and develop, whilst still maintain a focus on justice, equity, inclusion and decolonising; we hope others will add to the list and expand its horizons further2. We wish it to be of benefit and value in many ways and in particular in challenging the dominant narratives and ideologies that given rise to the need for creating this list in the first place. Have fun, be inspired and de-colonise… always! 1 The term Black is used in a political sense to describe all people who have experienced white racism and are visually ‘read’ as not being white. In some contexts, other terms are frequently used such as “people of colour”, “Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic”, “Black, Indigenous and People of Colour” etc. We simply use the term ‘Black’ to collectively acknowledge voices not from the dominant white narrative. 2 If you have contributions you would like to make to the list, kindly send them to [email protected] GCD - De-Colonising Our Minds book list Dec 2019 2 BLACK WRITERS (FICTION) NAME OF IDENTITY BOOKS AUTHOR (Heritage, Origin and/or Nationality, Residence) Alexia Arthurs Jamaican living in USA How to love a Jamaican Aminatta Forna Scottish-Sierra Leonean Ancestor Stones The Memory of Love The Hired Man Happiness Amitav Ghosh Indian The Glass Palace Sea of Poppies River of Smoke Flood of Fire The Hungary Tide The Shadow Lines Andrea Levy British Jamaican The Long Song Never Far from Nowhere Small Island Arundhati Roy Indian The God of Small Things The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Bernadine Evaristo British Mr. Loverman Girl, Woman, Other Blonde Roots Soul Tourists The Emperor’s Love Celeste Ng Chinese American Everything I Never Told You Little Fires Everywhere Cherie Dimaline Metis, Canadian Indigenous Red Rooms The Marrow Thieves Empire of Wild Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Nigerian Half of a Yellow Sun Americanah Purple Hibiscus The Thing Around Your Neck Chinelo Okparanta Nigerian Under the Udala trees Chinua Achebe Nigerian Things Fall Apart No Longer at Ease Arrow of God A Man of the People Claire G Coleman Noongar, Australian Terra Nullius Aboriginal The Old Lie Clemantine Wamariya Rwandan The Girl who Smiled Beads Crystal Hana Kim Korean American If you Leave Me GCD - De-Colonising Our Minds book list Dec 2019 3 Danzy Senna American Caucasia – A Novel New People You Are Free: Stories David Chariandy Trinidad -Canadian Soucouyant Brother Devi S. Laskar Indian - American The Atlas of Reeds and Blues Doreen Baingana Ugandan Tropical Fish Dunya Mikhail Born and raised in Iraq The Beekeeper Now in America Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq Eden Robinson Haisla/Heiltsuk, Canadian Traplines Indigenous Monkey Beach Blood Sports Elif Shafak Turkish-British The Bastard of Istanbul The Forty Rules of Love The Three Daughters of Eve Etaf Rum Palestinian-American A Woman is No Man Gabriel Garcia Marquez Colombian One Hundred Years of Solitude Love in the Time of Cholera Han Kang Korean Human Acts Helen Oyeyemi Nigerian born, British, Boy, Snow, Bird living in Prague What is Not Yours Is Not Yours Ingrid Rojas Contreras Born and raised in Fruit of the Drunken Tree Columbia in USA now Isabel Allende Chilean American The House of the Spirits Island Beneath the Sea Ines of My Soul Eva Luna My Invented Country Daughter of Fortune James Baldwin American Another Country Go Tell It On The Mountain The Fire Next Time Nobody Knows My Name Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone Just Above My Head Giovanni’s Room Jasmin Darznik Iranian British Song of a Captive Bird Jeannette Armstrong Okanagan, Canadian Slash Indigenous Breathe Tracks Whispering in the Shadows Jennifer Nansubuga Ugandan Kintu Makumbi Jhumpa Lahiri British American of Indian Interpreter of Maladies Heritage The Namesake The Lowland Unaccustomed Earth In Other Words GCD - De-Colonising Our Minds book list Dec 2019 4 Khaled Hosseini Afghan American The Kite Runner A Thousand Splendid Suns And the Mountains Echoed Kiran Desai Indian-American The Inheritance of Loss Kirsten Chen Bury What We Cannot Take Krystal Sital Born in Trinidad now living Secrets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad in USA Lawrence Hill Bi-racial, Canada The Book of Negroes Any Known Blood The Illegal Lee Maracle Sto:lo Nation, Canadian Sojourner's Truth and Other Stories Indigenous Sundogs Ravensong Daughters are Forever Will's Garden First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style Celia's Song Bent Box – Poetry Talking to the Diaspora - Poetry Leila Aboulela Sudanese, lives in Scotland The Translator Elsewhere Home Leila Slimani French Moroccan Lullaby Adele Lillian Li Chinese American Number One Chinese Restaurant Lucy Tan Chinese American What We ere Promised Margaret Ogola Kenyan The River and the Source I Swear by Apollo Mariama Ba Senegalese So Long a Letter Scarlet Song Mario Vargas Llosa Peruvian Conversation in the Cathedral Captain Pantoja and the Special Service Meera Syal British- South Asian Anita and Me The House of Hidden Mothers Meja Mwangi Kenyan Going down River Road Kill me Quick Striving for the Wind Michael Ondaatje Sri Lankan born Canadian The English Patient Anil’s Ghost The Cat’s Table Running in the Family Warlight, In the Skin of a Lion Miguel Angel Asturias Guatemalan Mr. President Mira Stout Korean American, living in One Thousand Chestnut Trees London Mira T Lee Chinese American Everything Here Is Beautiful Mohsin Hamid British Pakistani The Reluctant Fundamentalist Moth Smoke GCD - De-Colonising Our Minds book list Dec 2019 5 How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia Discontent and Its Civilizations Exit West Monica Ali Bangladeshi-British Brick Lane Alentejo Blue In the Kitchen Untold Story Nafissa Thompson-Spires African American Heads of the Colored People Naguib Mahfouz Egyptian The Cairo Trilogy The Children of Gebelawi & many others Nakkiah Lui Gamilaroi/Torres Strait Kill the Messenger Islander – Australian Black is the New White Aboriginal Nawal El Saadawi Egyptian The Fall of the Imam Woman at Point Zero Negar Djavadi Born in Iran/ Iranian French Disoriental Nella Larson American – novelist of the Passing Harlem Renaissance Nelson Mandela South African Long Walk to Freedom Ngugi wa Thiong’o Kenyan The River Between A Grain of Wheat Weep Not, Child Wizard of the Crow Octavio Paz Mexican The Labyrinth of Solitude Orhan Pamuk Turkish Snow My Name is Red A Strangeness in My Mind Pablo Neruda Chilean Twenty Love Poems and Song of Despair Canto General Peter Kimani Kenyan Dance of the Jakaranda Porochista Khakpour Born in Iran, Iranian Sons and Other Flammable Objects American The Last Illusion Sick Richard Wagamese Ojibway, Canadian One Native Life Indigenous Indian Horse Romesh Gunesekera Sri Lankan Born, British Monkfish Moon Reef Sabaa Tahir Pakistani-American An Ember in the Ashes A Torch Against the Night Scholastique Mukasonga Rwandan, lives in France Our Lady of the Nile Shawna Singh Baldwin Canadian American of What the Body Remembers Indian descent The Tiger Claw The Selector of Souls Shyam Selvadurai Sri Lankan born, Canadian Funny Boy Cinnamon Gardens GCD - De-Colonising Our Minds book list Dec 2019 6 The Hungry Ghosts Ta-Nehisi Coates African American The Water Dancer Tayari Jones African American Leaving Atlanta The Untelling Silver Sparrow An American Marriage Thrity Umrigar Indian American The Secrets Between Us The Space Between Us If Today Be Sweet Everybody’s Son The World We Found Thomas King Cherokee,