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

[diligentscribbler]

Man I think the last five novels i read were translated.

Hans Fallad is german (Alone in Berlin, the drinker),Haruki Murakami is Japanese (Kafka on the Shore), Patrirck Suskind German (the Pigeon), Umberto Eco spanish? (in the name of the rose).

I just see literature not a nation or race, this seems like some weird american gag where everything is a race issue.

If anything i feel bad i don't read more novels in their original language, I'm so anglo-centric when in comes to language but there are only so many languages you can learn if you actually want to get any reading done.

I also feel guilty i don't read more Australian literature, but i just can't find the time.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

>>Implying I look up the race of authors I read

That's weird man. What about the other races? I find it odd to choose black specifically.

Well, one day I realized that nobody I know reads black writers, so I decided to check how things were here on the Escapist.

Out of curiosity, are there any black authors who write medieval fantasy / sci-fi fiction?

Like every other poster here, I also have no clue what the contributors of my bookshelf look like, but you got me curious. And I really cba to go look up a picture for every one of them, though I suppose they would be predominantly white males.

 

[Korenith]

Oh dear god. Do so few people give a damn about the writers of the books they read? I understand it doesn't necessarily impact quality but it very often influences the perspective a novel is written from so I deliberately seek out writers of different nationalities because I find it interesting. Variety being the spice of life and all that. Ah well each to their own but I am sensing a heck of a lot of defensiveness in this thread. Calm down. Nobody's accusing. It's just a question to provoke a little thought.

1. I'm reading V. S. Naipaul's "A Bend in the River" right now but I also like Chinua Achebe, Fred D'Aguiar and Hanif Kureshi.

2. This is a little tougher but I think the last translated work I read might have been "Master and Margarita" or the "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." I can't remember which I read most recently as they were both last year some time.

 

[Eomega123]

Both of these books were for school, so I'm not sure they count, but here goes:

1) Native Son by Richard Wright, though it might fall into the 'book about being black' category. A fiction novel about a black guy who accidentally kills a white woman, tries to frame her socialist boyfriend, and ends up getting the electric chair.

2) Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, though in truth I only read the first few chapters because, you know, it'a a big ass Russian novel with ten-thousand characters and forty-thousand conversations about how cold it is, how much everyone is starving, or how much things suck in general.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I'm suddenly reminded of that bit from American Dad with the over-zealous white teacher giving a lecture on Black History Month: "The average white man thinks about sex with a white woman every seven seconds but he only thinks about sex with a black ONCE IN A LIFETIME! So the next time you think Beethoven wasn't black - LOOK IN THE MIRROR!" *Black Panther salute*

1. No idea, probably never because of my hatred for non-whites I have never once considered an author's race to be of importance in a book I read. I usually go for things that look interesting.

2. Do Sven Hassel and Leo Kessler books count for this? Oh and Metro 2033.

 

[Scars Unseen]

No clue on the first one. I don't pay much attention to the author unless the author is historically significant. Which brings me to the second part:

Last translated work I read was the Alexiad, a history/biography of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I by his daughter Anna Komnene, one of the very few female historians of the middle ages.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Man I think the last five novels i read were translated.

Hans Fallad is german (Alone in Berlin, the drinker),Haruki Murakami is Japanese (Kafka on the Shore), Patrirck Suskind German (the Pigeon), Umberto Eco spanish? (in the name of the rose).

I just see literature not a nation or race, this seems like some weird american gag where everything is a race issue.

If anything i feel bad i don't read more novels in their original language, I'm so anglo-centric when in comes to language but there are only so many languages you can learn if you actually want to get any reading done.

I also feel guilty i don't read more Australian literature, but i just can't find the time.

The last Australian book I read was Rhubarb by Craig Silvey and could be best summed up in quality by the passage involving a graphic description of a decrepit old man masterbating about his dead wife in a bathtub.

So, you know, don't feel *too* guilty!

 

[Bocaj2000]

1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.

2. Kafka, Musashi, The Witcher books, etc.

It's not hard to find these books.

 

[Zhukov]

1. I don't think I've ever read a book by a black author. If I have, then I didn't know the author was black. It's not like I check, after all. Come to think of it, I can't even think of any black authors off the top of my head, unless you count autobiographies.

2. I've read a bit of Russian literature. Last one was Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.

 

[maxben]

>>Implying I look up the race of authors I read

That's weird man. What about the other races? I find it odd to choose black specifically.

Well, one day I realized that nobody I know reads black writers, so I decided to check how things were here on the Escapist.

But maybe they really didn't know? I actually just now went back to all the books I read over the last 5 years to check if the writers are black. Turns out, David Anthony Durham who wrote the Acacia books (one of the best fantasy series today, the whole thing was just brilliant) which is basically a much more fantastical Game of Thrones (gritty realism can get boring), is black. But how was I supposed to know that? Hell, I am sure many people on the Escapist read those books and didn't know.

As for your second question, I read a tonne of Paulo Coelho books. He is a Brazilian author who wrote The Alchemist (his most successful and well known book). For me, Veronika Decides to Die was his best, mostly because I felt many of the themes more clearly.

 

[Something Amyss]

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

Allow me to rephrase: Is anyone saying they do as it pertains to this thread?

 

[ninjaRiv]

I don't see how any of it matters, unless a black or foreign author actually puts you off. I don't remember the last time I read a novel by a black guy. Why would I? What difference does it make? I've read books by gay people and women, but I have absolutely no interest in that element of an authors background, either. I can pull a random black author or artist's (I read a lot of comics) name out of the air, if you like... But I don't see how that would benefit anybody.

I've been reading Little Star by a Swedish author named John Ajvide Lindqvist. The only reason I know he's Swedish is because it's set in Sweden and has "translated by" on the cover.

The origins of the author are of no interest to me unless I become a big fan and want to learn more about them or unless it directly relates to the story. Don't see how race or anything should matter.

I'm assuming you're trying to prove that not many black people are published...? Same with foreigners, maybe? Well, Rob Guilory once spoke about that; He did a workshop where the majority of students were black and the main thing he found out, is that they didn't know they COULD do that stuff. They thought it was a white people thing.

 

[spartan231490]

1) I don't know. I give 0 shits what the author of my books looks like, I don't check their pictures, and don't know their race. After a quick google, I was right about the author I thought might be black. About 8 months then. Maybe less, since one of the authors I've read since then might have been black.

2) Never, to my knowledge. I look up books by subject material, not by initial language.

Why on Earth do you care about these things? Do you really think that whether or not you're racist is determined by the authors of the books you read? Or that reading a book originally written in another language makes you somehow more worldly?

 

[ImperialSunlight]

1. I don't know. I don't check the race of writers I read. As far as know, never. Most of the popular works by black writers that people know are black are about rascism to some degree, so I doubt any of the books I've read would count.

2. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (Spanish). I'm about halfway through it and am currently reading it. So far absolutely fantastic book. If Spain is too popular, then it was Blindness by Jose Saromago (Portuguese) a few years ago.

Edit: The Count of Monte Cristo

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I don't really read much, and this was years ago, but:

Black and "foreign": Machado de Assis, brazilian author. I'm not sure it counts, considering I'm brazilian myself. Also, the guy's been dead for a little over 100 years.

 

[SanguiniusMagnificum]

1) 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, just finished it a week ago. I did see the movie first, though. (Please don't hurt me)
Now, honestly, I don't really care about the race of the author. I mean, I read a book because I think it's fun or interesting, not because the author is black or asian. Just my two cents on this....

2) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. This could be considered cheating because I'm multilingual and have been raised in Russian.... Honorary mentions go to the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (stopped in the middle of the second novel) and Disgraced by J.M. Coetzee.

 

[salamoon]

1. Last that I know of was Thief by Malorie Blackman (just about sidestepped Noughts & Crosses, which would probably count as one of your exceptions). That was a couple years ago.

2. Probably Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, sometime last year. Most of the translated books I've read seem to be by Russians for some reason.

 

[Hosker]

What exactly is the purpose of these questions? What are you trying to find out?

I've read couple of plays by black authors. No novels com to mind. And I'm reading French book at the moment.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

It took me a while to think of any book I've read translated from a non-English language. I was like, "I never read War and Peace, what else is there?" It has been a long time since I read a non-English book, but then I remembered that I read The Stranger a few years ago. And I read Dante's Divine Comedy before that. So, those two.

As for black authors, I can't think of anything I know of for sure since I read The Color Purple in college.

 

[Eamar]

1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.

I had no idea he was black, and I love his stuff.

Seriously though, this just proves that a lot of the time people genuinely don't know this stuff. I think the people saying we're being "disingenuous" or "defensive" in this thread are being unfair.