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Colonialism

Picture of a woman standing on a curb in Al-Khalil, Palestine

Photo by Rob Stothard of PalFest 2023 on Flickr

In Palestine with Books

By Preti Taneja

“Books stand as a material resistance to dangerous, accelerating erasures of home, culture, language, art,” writes Preti Taneja.

A portrait of Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira Junior alongside the cover of his novel Crooked Plow,...

Reading to Coexist: A Conversation with Itamar Vieira Junior

By Ana Laura Malmaceda

To me, the text doesn’t resolve itself even when I write the final sentence.

Translated from Portuguese by the author

A tall foye tree trunk shot from below, surrounded by leaves

Patricio Novoa Quezada, CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr

Letters Drawn from Foye Bark

By Adriana Paredes Pinda

Adriana Paredes Pinda considers the power and implications of writing, what it means to exist between languages, and the lasting effects of colonialism on the Mapuche people.

Translated from Spanish by Arthur Malcolm Dixon

Multilingual

Photo of rocks and brush in Fitatimen, Río Negro

Photo: Liliana Ancalao

I Write to Purge This Memory

By Liliana Ancalao

Liliana Ancalao honors her Mapuche identity and records the violence the state committed against her people in the Conquest of the Desert and Occupation of Araucanía, violence that continues to this day.

Translated from Spanish by Liliana Ancalao & Seth Michelson

Multilingual

Portraits of Elisa Taber and Liliana Ancalao

Elisa Taber (left) and Liliana Ancalao (right)

Living Words: An Introduction to Five Contemporary Mapuche Texts

By Elisa Taber & Liliana Ancalao

Liliana Ancalao and Elisa Taber discuss the genocide of the Mapuche people, and how Mapuche writing both stitches together that open wound and recognizes the historical and cultural continuity of this people.

Translated from Spanish by Elisa Taber

Multilingual

Map of German East Africa

Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

German Medicine

By Abdulrazak Gurnah

Her mother was dead, she knew that, but she did not know why her aunt and her uncle were the ones who took her in.

Afroinsularity

By Conceição Lima

They left the islands a legacy / of hybrid words and gloomy plantations

Translated from Portuguese by Shook

MultimediaMultilingual

Global Blackness: Black Writers in Translation

By Eric M. B. Becker

Engaging the evolving dialogue that broadens definitions of global Blackness.

Islands Running across the Globe

By Manuel Brito-Semedo

Right from the start, Cabo Verdean concepts of identity and individuality were defined by this mixed reality: the African and the European, in all their diverse and contrasting characteristics.

Translated from Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

Works Cited In Franciane Conceição Silva’s Panorama of Afro-Brazilian Literature

By Franciane Conceição Silva

References and Further Reading Alves, Miriam.Mulher Mat(r)iz. Belo Horizonte: Nandyala, 2011.Alves, Miriam. Entrevista. Duke, Dawn (Org.). A escritora afro-brasileira: ativismo e arte literária.…

Translated from Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato

Another Country: Afro-Brazilian Writing, Past and Present

By Eric M. B. Becker & John Keene

If the literature of a country with the second largest black population worldwide (only Nigeria has a larger black population) does not include that population in its literature, one must ask which Brazil we’re speaking of when we speak of Brazilian…

Insurgent Voices: A Panorama of Afro-Brazilian Writing

By Franciane Conceição Silva

Politicians know I’m a poet. And that poets face death when their people are oppressed.

Translated from Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato

Multilingual

Black Teeth and Blue Hair

By Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Ignorance is a kind of blindness.”

Translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker

Afro-Brazilian Crusader: On Lima Barreto

By Felipe Botelho Correa

According to Barreto himself, the aim of his crusade was to produce a type of literature that he defined as “militante,” engaging with the society’s most pressing issues and communicating these issues to a wider audience in accessible language.

In Aflitos

She was furious! She grew silent again, went upstairs, and searched the nightstand. The pistol was there.

Translated from Portuguese by John Keene

Three Poems

By Ricardo Aleixo

A Black man is always somebody's Black man.

Translated from Portuguese by Dan Hanrahan

Multimedia

Four Poems

By Cristiane Sobral

Time, lord of the hours / reigns sovereign

Translated from Portuguese by John Keene

Multilingual