|
|
Biography and Memoir October 2021 |
|
|
|
|
| Poet Warrior by Joy HarjoWhat it is: United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo's lyrical and engaging follow-up to her 2012 memoir Crazy Brave.
Topics include: Harjo's Muscogee upbringing with a poetry-loving mother, who encouraged the author's interest in words; surviving abuse from her father and stepfather; finding communion with fellow Native writers as a University of New Mexico student in the 1970s.
Also available in eBook on CloudLibrary |
|
| Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by Dawn TurnerWhat it is: Journalist Dawn Turner's moving memoir detailing her 1970s coming of age in the South Side of Chicago's historic Bronzeville neighborhood (known as the city's "Black Metropolis") alongside her younger sister, Kim, and her best friend, Debra.
Read it for: A powerful examination of diverging paths and second chances, told with candor and empathy; an immersive portrait of life in post-civil rights era Chicago, drawing upon dozens of interviews. |
|
| Beautiful Country by Qian Julie WangWhat it's about: In 1994, seven-year-old Qian Julie Wang and her family fled China, settling in New York City's Chinatown. Over the next five years, they battled poverty, racism, labor exploitation (including Wang's own time working in a sweatshop), and the constant fear of deportation.
For fans of: Emotionally affecting memoirs that explore the reality of life as an undocumented immigrant, like Marcelo Hernandez Castillo's Children of the Land. |
|
| The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine by Yousef BashirWhat it's about: Yousef Bashir's childhood in occupied Palestine during the Second Intifada, when Israeli soldiers seized his family's farm.
The turning point: Shot in the back by a soldier at 15, Bashir was paralyzed for more than a year. During recovery, he vowed to follow in his pacifist father's footsteps and become an advocate for peace.
Where he is now: A former member of the Palestinian Diplomatic Delegation to the United States, Bashir is the Director of Research & Operations at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. |
|
| Mean by Myriam GurbaWhat it is: Experimental writer Myriam Gurba's darkly humorous reckoning with her formative and ongoing traumas including sexual violence, racism, misogyny, and homophobia.
Why you should read it: Gurba's wry and thought-provoking reflections will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page. |
|
| Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age by Darrel J. McLeodWhat it is: Cree author Darrel J. McLeod's family history, told in lyrical and fractured prose.
Read it for: A hopeful account of persisting in the face of generational trauma -- McLeod's mother, a survivor of a Catholic residential school, struggled with alcoholism, leaving McLeod to care for himself and his younger siblings.
Did you know? "Mamaskatch" is a Cree word with several meanings, including "How strange" and "It's a miracle." |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|