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

[FoolKiller]

My answer to both would be "The Count of Monte Christo" by Alexandre Dumas.

This is a very weird topic. I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this. Sounds like you don't know either.

Well said.

I'm not sure what the OP is getting at? Am I supposed to be secretly racist because I don't know or care for the race of the authors of the books I read?

And to answer the OP, I don't know. I haven't read any Dumas, but then again, I didn't know he was black. I also only found out JK Rowling was female because they kept reporting about her during the Harry Potter madness.

I only know the race of the author when they throw it in my face with random stuff like the extra content on the Game of Thrones blurays. And even then, I rarely remember. I genuinely don't care either way.

As for foreign, I would have to go with The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest a couple of years ago.

 

[Eamar]

I guess I'm curious as to why not? Why would you NOT want to know more about an author whose books you appreciate? Wouldn't you want to know more about a musician or actor whose performance just blew you away. Aren't you interested in what drives them or colors their work?

I'd turn that around and ask why on earth would you want to find out more?

For me, the less I know about the author the better. I don't even like it when there's a photo on the dust jacket. I don't want my interpretation and experience of the book to be in any way influenced by knowledge or assumptions about the author and their life/beliefs/actions. If the book has a message, it should come through in the work itself without me having to look up what "drives" the author.

Plus, especially as far as fantasy and science fiction goes, books are escapism for me. I want to get lost in another reality, I want to believe it's real. Knowing too much about the author (or even acknowledging their existence) can spoil the magic.

I guess it's a personal thing though. Honestly, I never really thought about it much before this thread.

 

[Zen Bard]

I guess I'm curious as to why not? Why would you NOT want to know more about an author whose books you appreciate? Wouldn't you want to know more about a musician or actor whose performance just blew you away. Aren't you interested in what drives them or colors their work?

I'd turn that around and ask why on earth would you want to find out more?

For me, the less I know about the author the better. I don't even like it when there's a photo on the dust jacket. I don't want my interpretation and experience of the book to be in any way influenced by knowledge or assumptions about the author and their life/beliefs/actions. If the book has a message, it should come through in the work itself without me having to look up what "drives" the author.

Plus, especially as far as fantasy and science fiction goes, books are escapism for me. I want to get lost in another reality, I want to believe it's real. Knowing too much about the author (or even acknowledging their existence) can spoil the magic.

I guess it's a personal thing though. Honestly, I never really thought about it much before this thread.

Fair enough. There's definitely validity wanting to have an unfiltered connection between the reader and material.

I guess I'm just a student of the creative process (since I'm a frustrated writer myself). The genesis of ideas absolutely fascinates me. So I wanted to know just how Michael Moorcock came up with "Elric of Melnibone' " or what particular narcotic Phillip K. Dick was using when he wrote some of his seminal works.

And while I agree that knowing too much about and author can definitely "spoil the magic", truly good literature should be able to stand on its own regardless.

For example, H.P. Lovecraft's work is still among my all-time favorite reads, even though I know the author was an elitist, racist snob.

But like you said...it's a personal thing.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I have no idea who the colour or ethnicity of the people that writes the books i read. Its a non issue, i just pick up titles that sound like a fun read. Though i think calling some one "a black author" instead of an "author" is stupid, there skin colour has nothing to do with their writing.

 

[Daggedawg]

1. I'm actually not sure if I've ever read a book by a black author. Like most people in the thread, I don't really pay attention to the author's race etc.

2. I haven't read any translated works in years. Then again, I have been reading pretty much only Stephen King and Terry Pratchett, with a little Murakami on the side for the last year and a half.

 

[Barbas]

1. I wouldn't know. I don't really know the faces of authors, like you said. I wouldn't know the last time I read a book wrote by a black author. Hell I wouldn't know the last time I read a book written by a white author.

2. Just last week. Metro 2033, Russian. Absolutely love it, I've read it about 4 times now. The sequel has finally been translated to English so I'm hoping to pick the book up soon! I can't wait!

Is the book really that good? I might give it a try, then. I understand a lot of interesting things were detailed in the book but not the games, such as the phenomena surrounding the Kremlin and the inhabitants of certain stations thus far unexplored in the games. I wasn't sure about his writing style, but the subject matter enthralls me.

OT: I can't name anything I've read by a black person, but then I rarely look up photographs of the author either. I only really recognize them by name or maybe writing style. Oh, wait a minute - Chinua Achebe, who we studied once as part of a course. He wrote a book called Things Fall Apart - a sad story from a sad period. I suppose that counts for both.

 

[Padwolf]

Snippidy

It's really good, I wasn't too sure about his writing style at first either, but it really grew on me. It's worth a read! I find the subject matter great too, I love books like it. Yeah, there are quite a few things the game didn't go into, I won't spoil anything, but give it a go!

 

[Barbas]

Snippidy

It's really good, I wasn't too sure about his writing style at first either, but it really grew on me. It's worth a read! I find the subject matter great too, I love books like it. Yeah, there are quite a few things the game didn't go into, I won't spoil anything, but give it a go!

Great, thanks! I've been getting a little bored of digging up old yellowing books from the corners of the house and kicking up dust devils. I look forward to getting stuck into a new book for a change.

OT: Oh, there's another, actually: The Long Walk, an account by Sławomir Rawicz, a Polish POW in a Siberian Gulag. He and his friends allegedly escaped in 1941 and walked to India. Details are sketchy - some are contradictory and others cannot be verified, but it does all make for quite the story.

 

[Idlemessiah]

Don't think I've ever read anything by a black writer but I have read the Night Watch series by the Russian Sergei Lukyanenko.

 

[evenest]

I'm curious about this, so let's hear it. When did you last read:

1. A novel by a black writer.

2. A translated novel

EDIT: Lots of people ask me why I'm curious about question #1. Well, many answered it with "I don't know if or when I read something by a black writer, because race doesn't matter to me and I never check what the writers look like." Well, let's be honest here, people -- if I'd asked for a white writer, every single person would have been able to name at least one writer they knew was white that they'd read. Even though they "don't care about race and never bother to look up what a writer's face looks like." And that says something about our society, though I'm not sure what yet.

1. I read _Let It Go_, by T.D. Jakes in July 2013; I've got an anthology of African-American writers on my shelf that I plan to read in the next couple of months, once I work through the two series of dead white authors that I am currently reading.

2. I read _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ in February 2014. If you aren't going to count that, I read _The Essential Kabbalah: the Heart of Jewish Mysticism_ also in February 2014. I'm a fan of Umberto Eco and plan on catching up with him soon.

I hope that helps.

 

[Cerebrawl]

EDIT: Lots of people ask me why I'm curious about question #1. Well, many answered it with "I don't know if or when I read something by a black writer, because race doesn't matter to me and I never check what the writers look like." Well, let's be honest here, people -- if I'd asked for a white writer, every single person would have been able to name at least one writer they knew was white that they'd read. Even though they "don't care about race and never bother to look up what a writer's face looks like." And that says something about our society, though I'm not sure what yet.

Honestly it's more about the lack of famous black authors than anything else, and unless they're really famous or have their picture on the cover sleeve somewhere, or have a really ghetto name, we don't know. Heck the only reason I knew Alexander Dumas was black was because I was told so when I watched Django. I knew he was french, I did not know his race.

I know some authors are white mainly because they're famous enough that I've seen their picture(GRRM, Pratchet, Tolkien, and a few others), or it's on the cover sleeve, or in three cases, because I've read their blogs(Marko Kloos, Peter Grant, and Larry Correia). I've read hundreds of authors and couldn't tell you what race more than maybe a dozen are. I've read at least one book with a black protagonist though, The Great Thirst, by William Duggan(takes place in south africa during the Boer War era, and the main protagonist is the greatest hero of a small tribe at the edge of the kalahari desert, the author is white however).

Most of the 1k+ books I've read are in the Fantasy and Sci-fi genres, and there's not that many black authors there. The city library where I live doesn't stock a single one that I'm aware of(at least in the english language section), or I'd have already read it.

Heck after seeing this topic I went googling for them online and didn't really find any I recognized, and there really aren't that many, and most of those that exist are recent and unknown, with a couple of exceptions, that I still hadn't heard about.

I did find this though: http://contentinfantasy.blogspot.se/2013/04/black-authors-writing-fantasywhere-are.html

 

[Sight Unseen]

Closest I can think of for #1 is Michael Ondaatje who wrote Anil's Ghost. He's not black really but he's from Sri Lanka and is not "white". Not sure why that matters though

For #2 it'd be the first Witcher novel that I read by Andrzej Sapkowski. Written in Polish translated to english.

 

[Professor James]

1. I would of said Invisible man but since that doesn't count for some asinine reason I will say the Autobiography of Malcolm X which was like 5 years ago.

2. I'm currently reading The Millennium Trilogy but if that is too mainstream for you I also read Don Quixote and of course The Bible.

 

[Gatx]

I'm a big fan of the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I also recently picked up a book called the Map of the Sky which I also discovered was translated from Spanish.

I also started a book called Usurper of the Sun, which is a translated Japanese light novel. I read a lot of manga too if that counts. Japan produces a ton of books but they don't get translated too often unless they're the type that are deemed to have "literary value." This seems to be changing now though, Viz Media has their own book publishing branch and the upcoming Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow is actually based on a light novel called All You Need is Kill.

 

[Someone Depressing]

1. Honestly, I can't remember. I really don't check the races of writers, or, unless the writer actually interests me, I don't pay much attention to them at all.

2. Siddhartha, it's a book I re-read a lot. Mostly because it's a book I don't understand very well, but want to.

As for 1, I could definetely name a white writer; probably a childrens' writer, only because I actually know that she's white. However, when I'm actually reading a book and know nothing about the author, then I don't tend to picture the author based on the books, it just hasn't happened to me.

I suppose I should pride myself on reading a lot more often (my reading is in inverse proportion to how much I play video games, so I suppose that's something to feel proud of) and I'm becoming a litle more literary.

 

[Queen Michael]

I also started a book called Usurper of the Sun, which is a translated Japanese light novel. I read a lot of manga too if that counts. Japan produces a ton of books but they don't get translated too often unless they're the type that are deemed to have "literary value." This seems to be changing now though, Viz Media has their own book publishing branch and the upcoming Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow is actually based on a light novel called All You Need is Kill.

I started reading Usurper of the Sun four years ago, but it wasn't my thing. I do plan to read All You Need Is Kill, though.

 

[RobertP]

Why not add a third category, for books that were written over 100 years ago?

Alexandre Dumas is one of my favourite authors. He's French, and one-eighth black. And his books are almost 200 years old, but the best translations are fairly recent (the past 20 years or so).

 

[TheIronRuler]

I've read Albert Cami, Garcia Marks Alexander Dumas, Cell 21, The Good Soldier ?vejk... That's French, Spanish, Swedish and Czech all translated into Hebrew. I don't know much about Black authors - holy hell, I think I haven't read one book by a black author. Does that make me racist?
Naaaaaah.

That does make you wonder... why haven't I read one?

 

[arturolei]

1) Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (one of my favorite novels) but unfortunately that was years ago in high school, in the early 2000s.

I've read Frantz Fanon's "Les Damnes de la terre" a year or two ago, but I suspect that might not count since: 1) it's not a novel 2)It's about waging a war of liberation and the state of the colonized intellectual in a post-colonial Africa.

2) "Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana", Carlo Emilio Gadda, translated from Italian by William Weaver. This was in 2012.

Since then, I've read dozens of novels though from foreign authors but not translated as I'm ambivalent about translation. I am in favor of learning another language in order to read in that language (or game in that language, Bioshock Infinite in Italian is trippy).

On one hand, I'm not keen on reading works in translation. Translating Vergil in my high school days traumatized me in that it made realize how much is altered/lost when you translate and I sort of became paranoid about translation. I never read Verne until I learned French. I learned Spanish in order to read Borges. One day, I hope to read Kafka and Karl May in the original German.

On the other hand, I love reading works in English translated into Italian, French, or Spanish (not my native languages).
In fact, I encourage people learning foreign languages to read a familiar text they know translated into that foreign language.

It's as close as you can get to traveling to a parallel universe. Everything is the same but uncanny.

For instance, I recently read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in Italian (a heartbreaking but illuminating experience).

 

[NeutralDrow]

I read a couple of short stories by black feminist authors for a college class, though I can't remember what they were (most of what I remember from that class's literature was by Chandra Mohanty). Same with books written and translated by foreign authors, though I can still name a few of those; "Playing With Fire" by Chong Rae Cho, "Silence" by Shusaku Endo, "Seven Daoist Immortals," the Bhagavad-Gita, etc...I majored in Asian Studies, needless to say.

The last book I know I read by a black author that I can remember clearly was Their Eyes Were Watching God. That counts for purposes of this thread, right? It was about black people, but it wasn't specifically about being black.