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Feminist Five
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"Beyond the Gender Binary will give readers everywhere the feeling thatIn the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from theirIn The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and FairerAn intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing,A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age isIn the words of author Sunisa Manning, A Good True Thai is about “politics, anything is possible within themselves"--Princess Nokia, musician and“Documents centuries of techniques designed to limit progress in the blackoriginal lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now partHealth Care, author T.R. Reid describes the methods that other industrializedUnburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story anda page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a youngprotest, and radicalization” from the lens of three wildly different university co-founder of the Smart Girl Club community. Although some of the material may be upsetting, this is a bookof Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family’s democracies have used to provide healthcare for citizens for far less than what the power – and limitations – of family bonds. black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection thatstudents in 1970’s Thailand. In the novel, the main character, Det, the l that should absolutely be included in the curriculum." – Starred review, Schoolands and opens a dialogue with history. is spent for health care in the United States. These countries, in doing so for threatens to undo them both.great-grandson of the king who has just lost his mother, meets Chang, a bright In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate AlokLibrary Connection In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of herless money, provide universal coverage for all their citizens. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. Hisstudent from the Klong Toey slums, and Lek, a Chinese immigrant with radical h Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary.omeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenoumother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She isideals, and becomes acquainted with their respective political circles. s When America achieves milestones of progress toward full and equal blackfamilies, essentially disappeared. From her memory of her mother’s death, to her beginnings in the T.R. Reid describes his purpose in writing this book to “search the developed world for effective health care black and her children's father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing participation in democracy, the systemic response is a consistent racist backlash that rolls back those wins. We Are Not Yet Equal examines five of these moments: The end of the native rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo’s personal life intertwines with tribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings. Her poems sing of beauty and survival, illuminating a spirituality that connects her to her ancestors and thrums with the quiet anger of living systems and take lessons from the ones that work best.” Not surprisingly, Reid finds positives and negatives in many of the systems he evaluates in an unbiased fashion. His conclusion that all of these other plans spend wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd According to Manning, writing this novel came from several veins of inspiration. One source of inspiration was her discovery of the history of Thai nobility in the 1970s that radicalized and sacrificed their power for the "Thank God we have Alok. And I'm learning a thing or two myself."--Billy Porter, Emmy award-winningCivil War and Reconstruction was greeted with Jim Crow laws; the promise of new opportunities in the Northin the ruins of injustice. less on health care administration than the United States, achieve better outputs than the US system, and When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.oppressed. Manning also wrote the novel as a historical fiction piece to allow herself more freedom when actor, singer, and Broadway theater performer during the Great Migration was limited when blacks were physically blockedcover all citizens within their countries is irrefutable. to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman,commenting on the monarchy, access, and power in Thailand, a privilege from therealso moving away from is another boy, theallowed to her by the her "When reading this book, all I feel is kindness."--Sam Smith, Grammy and Oscar award-winning singer and songwriter South; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to “An American Sunrise is full of celebration, crisis, brokenness and healing, with poems that rely on lyric techniques like repetition, avoidance of temporal specifics and the urge to speak collectively… ” “Not many writers of any ilk… can match T.R. Reid’s ability to bring a light, witty touch to really serious topics–like health policy around the globe. ” –New America Foundation ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each Thai-American heritage. Finally, Manning has also discussed that the novel gave her an opportunity to reimagine her mother’s experience as a poor Chinese immigrant student in 1970s Thailand. laws that disenfranchised millions of African American voters and aRich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing brings thother. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores War on Drugs that disproportionatelye archetypal road novel into ruralthe stickiness of transactional You can order hard copies of A Good True Thai at East Bay Book Sellers and Point Reyes Books, or read online "A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewtargeted blacks; and the election of President Obama led to an outburst of violence including—Daisy Fried, New York Timestwenty-first century America. relationships, what it means to make someone "family, " and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It debut for our times. on Amazon. the is a deathsearing of black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri as well as the election of Donald Trump.
“However “Epic in eternalsweep itsbut concerns, precise Sing,in its Unburied, Sing isdetails, A Good perfectly True Th poisedai shin for the moment.es on all fronts. It combinesTime and aspects of theagain, Sunisa American road novel and the ghostManning resists easy answers, story withreaching afotimely treatment of the longr nuance, for complexity, aftershocks offor truth. An a hurricaneastoundin and the opioidg debut from epidemic devouring rural America ... It is Ward’s most unsparing book.” - Parul Sehgal, New York Timesa talented new voice. ” –Kirstin Chen, bestselling author of Bury What We Cannot Take
“I believe there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives,
through words. ”“It’s been a time ― Jesmyn Ward, Theof strange losses in thFiree facThise of Time: A Newwhat should’ Generation Speaksve been victories. ” about Race - Sunisa Manni Artist andJesmyn Ward (born Apng, AGoodTrueThai ril activist1, 1977) is V an aid-MenAmerican on novel demonsist and an trates associate how profess the or of EnglThe i normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflictssh at Tulane University. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for herdaughter of a white American father and a Thai mother descended from physical and emotional violence. second novel Salvage the Bones and won the 2017 NationalChinese immigrants, Sunisa Manning was born and raised Book Award forin Bangkok and Fiction fstudied orat heran novel Sing, Unburiedinternational school, Sinfor g. Shemost also received a 2012 Alex Award for theof her academic career. She carried story aboutthis unique The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes abfamilial love and community in facing Hurricane Katrina. She is the only woman perspective with her to Brown University where she would study English outand and how enforcement only African American to win thExpository writing. of the e Nation gender binary al Book Award for begins befo Fiction twice. re birth and The first in her family to attend college, she earned a B.A. in English, in 1999, and an M.A. in media studies and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerabcommunication, in 2000, le dboth ue to Western conception at Stanford University. Ward choses of gen to becomeder as a writer bi to nary.honor Gender assthe memory of ignher ments youngerAfter graduating from Brown, Manning moved back to Bangkok where she worked in rural development for createbrother, a nwhoarrativewas killed for how a persoby a drunk driver inn shouOctoberld behave, what2000. In 2005, Wardthey are alreceived her lowedMFA in to likeCreative or wear, andWriting from the the Mae Fah Luang Foundation. According to Manning, her experience communicating with the farmers, some how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to anUniversity of Michigan. Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of Hurricane Katrina.of whom were connected to nobility, that worked with the foundation inspired much ofinseparablethe material linkfor A between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against genderTired and traumatized, the family was eventually given shelter by another white family down the road. Ward went onGood True Thai. After a robust career in non-profit work, Manning is currently employed as a teacher at UC nonconformity, breakito work at the University ofBerkley Extension. ng them dNew Orleans, own whereinto four categories—dismiss her daily commute took her through al, the inconvenienneighborhoods ce, bioloravaged by gy, the hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, and Ward thewas slipp unableery slope (fear of the conseqto write creatively for three years – theuen timeces of acceptance). Headit took her to find a publisher for ers inher first bold novel, font createWhere the Line an accessBleeds.In addition iblto eA navigatioGood Truen exThai,perienceManning fis rom one analysis to thean incredibly talented essayist nex andt. The proshort story se mainwriter. In tainsmost a of con her versational tone that feels as intimate and vuln In 2008, just as Ward had decided to give up writing andwork, Manning explores and unpacks her own identity erable as talking with a best friend. At the enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds wasas a luk khrueng (the Thai term for being mixed accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing. The novel was pickedrace) woman, and pushes back against the Western perspective asof a Book Club Selection by EssenceThailand. You can find Manning magazine ’s essays and and same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and received a Black Caucus ofstories on her website. the American Library Association (BCALA) Honor Award in 2009. It was shortlisted for the Virginia poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the humanCommonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power. ” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
