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

[soren7550]

For the first one, I have no clue. Unless there's a picture of the author or the author is really famous, then I don't have a clue as to what they look like.

For the second, not counting manga, I think I recently read a translated book. It was possibly first written in Italian or German, but I'm not sure, and I don't care enough to look it up since I didn't like the book.

Granted, considering how much I've read throughout my life, I've probably read several of both.

 

[duwenbasden]

1. Irrelevant to my interest as a reader, so no idea.
2. Cantonese version of Crayon Shin-chan.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

Never ready anything by a black writer that I'm aware of.. and if you count Japanese translated light novels, then I read them all the time, most recently was the Japanese light novel The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa

 

[Stasisesque]

I'm a literature student, so I've read a lot of translated works: The Emigrants, Candide, The Idiot etc. I've also read a number of works by black writers.

As we're counting people like Alexandre Dumas, I'm on a Sam Selvon kick at the moment - he writes in an amalgamated West Indian dialect and his works are super engaging, though I have to say he does not present very positive female characters.

Do poets count? Langston Hughes, Claude McKay etc. they're fantastic, well worth the read even if you aren't a huge poetry fan their prose works are lovely.

 

[Bocaj2000]

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.

The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.

There's a huge misconception that the OP is about you seeking out black authors. It's not. It's just a statement about how rare they are. Saying, "I don't care about race," misses the point entirely.

 

[COMaestro]

As for a black author, other than some poems by Maya Angelou and a book by Toni Morrison that I had to read in school, I just don't know. I primarily read sci-fi and fantasy, and not all of those include a picture of the author on the back flap. Unless you count Alexandre Dumas, whose mother was black, as the books of his I've read (which also count towards your second question) were by choice.

I've read a few translated works. In addition to The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, I have also read nearly all the Vampire Hunter D novels and short stories by Hideyuki Kikuchi, and also The Inugami Clan by Seishi Yokomizo and Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. I keep meaning to read a book on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms I have, but I've just never gotten around to it. Not sure if any other works I've read were translated. Oh, Inferno by Dante, that I read by choice. And though they were assigned reading, I did enjoy and kept my copies of Beowulf, Njal's Saga, and The Canterbury Tales.

 

[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.

The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.

There's a huge misconception that the OP is about you seeking out black authors. It's not. It's just a statement about how rare they are. Saying, "I don't care about race," misses the point entirely.

Oh sure, I agree with you. I'm just saying the question is flawed on account of the fact that a lot of people genuinely do not know when they last read something by a black author. I agree there's probably some defensiveness at work here, but I also think that a lot of people are giving an honest response, not a disingenuous or defensive one.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

1) The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. There might have been others but I rarely care about the authors race unless it is quite clear in the book that it could/should have an impact.

2) I once started reading "And Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov. Recently it will have to be "Captain Jan" (or Hollands Glorie in Dutch) by Jan de Hartog and of course a lot of Astrid Lindgrens books (Pippi etc.). They fulfill your criteria although I didn't have to read a translated version (Swedish is quite understandable to me as a Dane).

 

[mindfaQ]

1.) None I'm aware of. Have to say that I don't always know the writer's skin color.

2.) Kinda depends on what you wanna know.
Not from US, UK, Canada, but in my native language: Dschinnland, which I canceled 1/3rd way, this week
Not translated but from US, UK, Canada: Words of Radiance is the last one I finished, this month
Not from US, UK, Canada, my country, translated: some Haruki Murakami novels like 1Q84, Kafka am Strand, last year

 

[qeinar]

I dont see why reading a black writer makes you racist or not. If I like a book, the race of the author isn't exactly my first question.

I agree, and actually reading a book because a black person wrote it is racist. When it comes to non english/norwegian books i tend to read french, russian, german or japanese. I don't read nearly as much as I want to though.

 

[Zakarath]

1. No idea, but I doubt it, as while I do read tons, it's pretty much all fantasy/SF, and I'm pretty sure all my favorite authors are Caucasian. But I don't really pay attention to such things.

2. I've read couple manga/LNs, but that's about it.

 

[Edl01]

1) No idea. When I read a book I tend to focus on whether the book is good or not, so I don't really look into anything about authors that I've read.

2) Does The Kite Runner count? If not then I feel Battle Royale is a good choice to put here. Heck I consider it one of my favorite books.

 

[Bocaj2000]

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.

The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.

There's a huge misconception that the OP is about you seeking out black authors. It's not. It's just a statement about how rare they are. Saying, "I don't care about race," misses the point entirely.

Oh sure, I agree with you. I'm just saying the question is flawed on account of the fact that a lot of people genuinely do not know when they last read something by a black author. I agree there's probably some defensiveness at work here, but I also think that a lot of people are giving an honest response, not a disingenuous or defensive one.

Of course. I agree with you completely. It's flawed, but at the same time the lack of knowledge about this topic is kind of the point. Few people know anything about authors, let alone what they look like. Hell, it took me a few years to find out that the author of "The Outsiders" is a woman. If we don't even know what they look like, then the knowledge of more important personal details is less likely which means that we have a narrow context of the work that we have come to love. I've had this exact conversation with my professor when he handed me Empire Star. It's something interesting to think about.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Personally, I only really read Fantasy/Sci Fi stories. Further, there's not really an easy way to determine race from the name alone (at least I've never read anything by someone called Jermaine or Tyrone, etc). As for foreign books, the last was probably for my French and Spanish A-Levels over a decade and a half ago.

For me, even reading popular fiction is outside of my "comfort zone" as it were, so having a read a handful of such novels (not to mention many of the classics) I personally consider that I have ventured into the exotic somewhat.

 

[GamerAddict7796]

As I don't care about the race of the writer, and find it quite racist that it should be worth noting, the last translated book I read was Mein Kampf for history. While it helped me get into Hitler's mindset and understand more about the Nazis, it was awful.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

1: I don't know, I rarely research authors but none of the ones I like from the top of my head seem to be black.

2: I've read the Witcher saga translated from Polish to Serbian.

 

[Queen Michael]

The last one I think was The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared (dat title) a year or so ago. It's Swedish originally, read the English version. Hilarious little novel, very good, comes recommended.

You read that one? =D Here in Sweden, everybody, and I mean EVERYbody, read that book a couple of years ago when it first came out. Me included, and I loved it. The sort-of-sequel came out last year. I actually preferred that one.

 

[DSK-]

I don't think I have read either 1. or 2. I'm not sure non-fiction counts so probably not. I'm just not much of a reader and haven't been since I left secondary school.

 

[peruvianskys]

Most of the literature I read is not English originally - not because I'm some kind of snob, but just because I enjoy a lot of genres that are better represented in Spanish, Italian, German, and other languages. Julio Cortazar from Argentina, Italo Calvino from Italy, and Kafka are my favorite authors. Also Yukio Mishima from Japan! You all should check them out!

 

[Cowabungaa]

The last one I think was The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared (dat title) a year or so ago. It's Swedish originally, read the English version. Hilarious little novel, very good, comes recommended.

You read that one? =D Here in Sweden, everybody, and I mean EVERYbody, read that book a couple of years ago when it first came out. Me included, and I loved it. The sort-of-sequel came out last year. I actually preferred that one.

Really now? Which one would that be, I'd love to read it.