It's a wrap!



Goodreads says that I'm ten books behind the schedule. I was supposed to read 53 books and I read 43 this year, but I'm satisfied. Let's call it a wrap people! And what did I do with my time the past months. I wrote, and wrote, and edited (with the help of my best friend) and wrote again. 

Yes, I wrote a book. 

So, I think the past three months have been well spent. Since Hang Kang, I've managed just to read a collection of poems by Morgan Parker, titled There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce and I liked it a great deal. For example, from the poem  Hottentot Venus and All they want is my money my pussy and my blood was brilliant. I like her style. 

I'm quite convinced that I won't be able to finish a novel before the year ends but who knows, in any case I want to nominate the book of the year for all my imaginary blog readers. The winner for 2024 will be:

Karolina Ramqvist, with More Fire 

I re-listened to a clip where she talks about The White City another novel of hers, You can watch it here

Ramqivst talks about an important topic. In Western feminism there's a ingrown prevalent assumption: Women can't appear weak or needy. When in fact women are in many ways, physically and socially the weaker vessel. Coming from an African feminist perspective, I'd argue that this notion doesn't exist in the discourse from the southern hemisphere. A woman doesn't have to deny her nature or identity, she doesn't have to become a man, and why is that? Well, at dawn of time, women and men where created equally and before colonialism women held a very different position in various African communities, until the effects of the Empire set in, most of which we still reap today. Oppression of women is not a question of color, social status, wealth or geography, it's worldwide. 

And because I don't know how to edit this post, I will just end by quoting one of my favorite Nigerian authors who said, 

“Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists


“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

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