When's the last time you read books like these?

[skeliton112]

Well the last time I read a book by an author I knew (I say knew but really I am assuming, he could have been white I never saw a picture) was black was a couple of years ago when I read Eye of the Eagle for school. Other than that I have no idea what the race of the people I read is unless they have an obviously "ethnic" name.
If we aren't counting Japanese books that have been translated then I have only read one or two. I read Metro 2033 a little while ago but other than that I can't remember any other particular cases.

 

[Dimitriov]

A black author? I have no idea, but probably never.

A foreign translation? Well the only novel that springs to mind is War and Peace. I don't really read a lot of novels anymore anyway.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I don't have a clue for the first question and none of my recent books (or most of them for that matter) have had an image of the author.

The second one is much easier, 3 weeks ago I read Metro 2033.

 

[Autumnflame]

Race gender sexuality age have no impact if something is good or not.

i could have read book from someone of any combination of possible occurrences but i don't read because.
" i only read books from " race, Gender, sexuality " author.

i read for the story not who the author is

i can enjoy a movie with a actor who i disagree with their personal political views but that doesn't cloud my interpretation of the role they play.

An example of this can easy be found in following Adam Baldwin on twitter and his response to people that say
" you have different ideals and ideas from my own WOW I'M NEVER WATCHING FIREFLY AGAIN!!!!!!!!"

As for translated. i have read quite a bit of Japanese translated books

 

[FPLOON]

I wouldn't have a clue in the slightest. The last time I can think of where I might have read something fitting into one of those categories was back in either middle or high school.

This.
I remember whenever we were assigned a new novel to read for class, the teacher would always talk about their race and, if it's was relevant, their sexual preference...

Other than that, I read the Tales of Symphonia book Successors of Hope, which came with the collector's edition of Tales of Symphonia Chronicles... I'm going to assume that's counts for #2...

 

[smiley92]

Last novel by a black writer I read was the whole series of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (or maybe Le Comte de Monte-Cristo). The last foreign novel I read was "Perfume- Story of a murderer" by Patrick Suskind

 

[chiggerwood]

I never read 12 Years A Slave or any of the others that you mentioned, And I never pay attention to what race the author is (mainly because I don't give a shit about race), but I like to read Langston Hughes and general Jazz & Blues poetry (although I prefer English Romanticism above all), I've read several books by Alexandre Dumas, and I'm planning on reading ****** by Dick Gregory with Robert lipsyte. As for translated, there's the Bible, and lot's of greek mythology, as well as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Divine Comedy, The Communist Manifesto, The Hagakure, a little bit of The Marquis de Sade, I tried reading Mein Kampf, but it got so fucking atrocious, not the content, I can handle the content, but it was written so fucking poorly that I just had to stop.

 

[Something Amyss]

Race gender sexuality age have no impact if something is good or not.

Is anyone saying that they do?

 

[RedDeadFred]

I honestly don't know for the first one. I don't pay much attention to the race of authors. As for the second one, never.

 

[infohippie]

To question number (1), I'll have to say maybe never, maybe yesterday. I am really not aware of the author's race when it comes to most of the books I read. So long as I enjoy the writing I don't even see how race has anything to do with it.

As for (2), I have read and enjoyed several sci fi novels by Russian authors, as well as Polish and Ukrainian authors. Just recently I was also reading more of Andrzej Sapkowski's Wiedźmin series.

 

[Arakasi]

I certainly don't recall reading any books by a black person, or a foreign writer. I've read short stories by both, but to my knowledge, no books.

I mostly tend to read non-fiction, philosophy/psychology books in particular, so my novel reading is very limited, mostly to the books my Raymond E. Feist.

 

[Autumnflame]

Race gender sexuality age have no impact if something is good or not.

Is anyone saying that they do?

ive seen many do this. Its sad but the world we live in.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

1- Haven't the foggyest. I'd be hard pushed to tell you their names. I suppose the Colour Purple, but I read that quite a while ago...
2- 'The Castle' by good ole' Kafka. Before that, a selection of Chekhov's stories.

I can understand that 2nd question, but what's the reasoning behind the first? As this thread has made rather obvious, many people just don't know authors unless they're waiting for a next book in a series (Looking at you Rothfuss/Martin...)

 

[Story]

1. I do not know any recent ones I'm ashamed to say. Though I do remember reading "Do You Remember The Color Blue" when I was very, very little. Bonus points that she was also a women and blind.Scratch that she's white. Oops. Glad I looked her up though, she appearently works at my college.
2. That's easy, I read "Let the Right One In" the author was Swedish. Though I'm not sure if Sweden produces a lot of highly successful authors.

I'm ashamed to say I don't read much in general. :c

 

[Raziel]

I've no idea about black author. I don't want to know anything about the authors I read. When I read ender's game I don't want to know what a jerk the author is. So I do my best to never even look at the photo. Something thats much easier know that I only buy digital.

I just look through the books in the genre I'm in the mood for. I download the sample and buy it if I like it. Race or gender plays no part. I don't even look at the authors name unless I liked the book enough to search for more by that author. Of the last 30 or so books I read I doubt I could even tell you the authors name for more than 2. Its just so easy to jump right to the kindle store from the novel I don't ever have to remember.

Translated also unknown. The only ones that come to mind are the vintage Gundam novel trilogy and maybe the rahxephon novels. Those were years and years ago.

 

[w23eer]

I dunno about black authors, but I read 1Q84 (translated from Japanese) about a year ago, as well as We (translated from Russian). 1Q84 was crap, We was pretty good though.

 

[Eleuthera]

1) Either never or I didn't know the author was black.

2) I've read books and novels from US, British, Dutch, German, French, Latin, Russian, Greek, Italian, Belgian and probably some more countries. Usually I read the English translations, except when the original is in Dutch obviously.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As mentioned, the race of the author doesn't matter, so I only ever read books by white English speaking authors.

 

[inactive123]

As far as I remember I've read some books back in school that could have been by someone black/coloured.
I personally don't see how race is relevant though. If I get recommended a book the last thing I would check is what the author looks like. Half the time I'm not even sure of gender let alone race.

The only authors that I could really recognize through appearance is Neil Gaiman and John Green, just because I follow them both on various social media.

Again as to a translated book I have no clue. It's possible that I've read something translated along the lines without knowing it but I can't be 100% sure. I've read a lot of books since I first learnt how to read. I don't even remember everything I've read.

I do plan on reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo if that counts.

 

[Silvanus]

To those saying that the author's demographics don't matter, you're kinda missing the point. He's not saying you should judge a novel by those characteristics; he's just trying to identify whether people read books outside of their own demographics. Because if 100 people were to say 'demographics don't matter to me', they may well be right personally, but if none of them have ever read a books by an author outside their own demographic, there's clearly a factor at play: things like this influence our choices subconsciously.