Kadija Sesay

I'm so glad I picked this up on a whim. If you can get past the horrid introduction, this is a worthy read that will point you in the direction of many other worthy reads. If you're a fan of lit fic, this is the place for you.

The three authors have spent decades in the field, and they provide overviews of 50 novels by authors of non-European backgrounds spanning the 20th century, from Japan to Nigeria, from the Caribbean to Indigenous Australia, as well as some additional suggestions along the way. As they note in the introduction, the most common charge levelled against people who want to broaden the literary canon to include more non-white writers is that, given historical inequality, many of the new inclusions are likely to be tokenism: that is, it's important to try and be inclusive but not if that means elevating lower quality works to do so. Thankfully, there is no need for that. As a lit snob myself, I can attest that each of the 50 books profiled herein sounds fascinating and engaging on both a narrative and literary level. I was less interested in many of the additional suggestions, but perhaps that's because there isn't enough detail to sell them.

The suggestions include a surprising number of authors that most serious lit readers will be familiar with: Achebe, Morrison, Rhys, Baldwin, Alice Walker, Arundhati Roy, Ngozi Adichie, Evaristo, and Zadie Smith all appear. However these are complemented by an equal number of authors I had heard of but had never bothered to approach, and another clutch of those unknown to me entirely. (Long-standing shame can be a surprisingly good motivating factor: I will certainly be reading Tsitsi Dangarembga at last!) By focusing on novels of the last 80 years, the authors avoid trying to yoke the reader to works that are primarily of historical or scholarly interest, instead directing us to novels which could stand alongside the greatest literary masters of our own era. A brief set of appendices outlines ways that interested readers can further "decolonize" their reading habits, and explaining a few of the logistical difficulties along the way, i.e. the challenge of getting publishers to market translations of works by authors largely unknown in the West, when publishing is increasingly becoming a market defined by "sure things".

Superficial peeve #1: I do wish that the 'additional suggestions' pages had been about twice as long (perhaps a smaller typeface than this generous size would have helped), allowing them to provide a short paragraph summary of each book. Instead we are given a sentence apiece, which often have that vague ideological quality: novels are important or challenging or revisionist. Great, but not a selling point for any except the most zealous.

Substantial peeve #1: This book has limitations which I'm not sure are fully justified by being admitted by the authors. They acknowledge that a huge (one-third) proportion of the novelists profiled were born in the US, and justify it in an odd way by stating that they didn't wish to create "hierarchies", for example implying that someone born into an oppressive regime is "more" colonised than a person of colour in the US. So, okay. But as a result, for example, there are almost no Hispanic authors. The entirety of South and Central America are glossed over, while hugely famous authors like Toni Morrison and Khaled Hosseini get a chapter apiece even though they surely don't need introductions to most white lit fic readers. It seems like an unusual decision. I thought it was perhaps because of the complex history of colonisation in the Americas which would make it hard to decide where Isabel Allende, for example, is a coloniser or the colonised. But then my partner sensibly pointed out that this is a problem given the complex histories of Africa and especially Asia, too, so that couldn't be the reason. A shame.

Superficial peeve #2: The use (or lack thereof) of punctuation and formatting is truly mind-boggling to me at times. Rejection of the Oxford comma and a reluctance to use semi-colons results in sentences that need to be read quite slowly to be fully understood. (And on almost every page, at that!) I acknowledge, however, that this may well have been deliberate. Educated, middle-class, white folk like myself often use the "standard" version of English as a gatekeeping device, and perhaps this is an ideological choice to resist finicky approaches to the language. It doesn't take away from the book's sheer power, so never mind.

Substantial peeve #2: This one actually bugged me. The introduction, if I'm being frank, felt like it hadn't quite nailed the target audience. Is this a book for activist readers of colour? For white people who are already keen to decolonize? Or for the average reader who hasn't thought much about it, and needs their eyes opened? Is it for literary readers (some books sound like they may be the James Joyce of their country) or for anyone who enjoys novels (books like The White Girl and The Kite Runner, which are essentially just well-told stories without literary pretentions, make appearances too)? The presence of exceedingly famous novels like The Colour Purple or Wide Sargasso Sea suggests to me that compromise was key between authors and publisher, and that the desire to engage all audiences slightly wilted the product's ambitions. Indeed, it appears that the authors wanted to write a book about the closed nature of university campuses and major publishing houses, especially when it comes to what is viewed as "classics". Yet so much of the introduction then seems to focus on broader barriers for minority writers, that I suspect that average reader - having checked out the major award nominations for any lit prize in the last five years - would look at the strikingly diverse lists and doubt their argument! By broadening to try and engage all possible purchasers, any force of the introduction is lost amidst a sea of generalities and derivatives. The quite grand pronouncements are not accompanied by examples or explanations that might be required to convince the unconvinced. Especially since many of the novels profiled in the book are revealed to have been long regarded in the West, published by Penguin Classics, or nominated for the Nobel Prize, a casual reader may think the introduction's anger is unwarranted, without the benefit of a broader understanding of the literary landscape! I would have liked to hear, for example, a brief explanation of why certain writers linger in the canon long after their power has dimmed; why some (such as Jane Austen) almost didn't make it or why others (perhaps Leigh Hunt) have now left it; or even just a quick ricochet around some arguments on the topic. For example, despite the authors' claim that many foreign writers are neglected in English, they use the example of the indigenous Sami people of Scandinavia. Their absence from translated literature would surely be a core subject if discussing Scandivanian lit, but as we're discussing English-language lit, I'm not sure why the Sami people are a particularly strong example? Even if translated, they're hardly likely to have comparable experiences to the average person in an English-speaking country, and seem to detract from a strong argument about the Indigenous and minority groups already living in those same countries. The academic jargon, too, felt like intellect-signalling to the converted, while I suspect it would've been purely off-putting to those without a tertiary liberal arts qualification. As someone already compelled by the book's subject matter, none of the above worried me, but - trying to read this from the point-of-view of the average reader - I was praying that such a person would make it past the rather flaccid opening. (The book's title, too, seems like it's designed to be provocative rather than rational; indeed, the authors note in their introduction that a better title would be "this is a canon", so I wish they'd just used that instead!)

On a final note - although it's justifiably outside the scope of this book - I hope this sells well, perhaps inspiring the publisher to dig into a range of these. Because of course, while books from non-Western countries have faced prejudice over the decades, there are many other groups that have struggled to get their day in the canon: women writers, books on LGBTQ issues, diverse stories about people with disabilities, and - as someone from the colonies myself - a different type of decolonisation in the comparative dismissal of Canadian, Irish, Australian, or eastern European authors on the world stage, so often overshadowed by the Yanks and the Brits.

At the end of the day, this book is a noble contribution to the great work of bringing equality to the literary canon. I feel galvanised to create my 2022 reading list, and This is the Canon will sit very happily by my side.… (mais)

"libraries are the bedrock of cultural civilization"

A fab resource but not without its issues. The introduction was a tough read and not at all thrilling. It was most definitely academic based, which could be off-putting for the everyday reader looking to expand and decolonise their reading preferences. However, once you get past this you discover a wealth of well researched books that were clearly not just selected as a ‘token’ read.

Some of the featured books I had already read or were on my radar, others were completely new to me. My wish-list is now much longer! I was concerned that the brief of each book almost gave away the whole plot, so I created a separate list of books, in order or preference, to refer to. This way I will have forgotten the main details by the time of reading.

Each book is followed by a brief ‘if you like this, try…’ section, which although helpful could have been expanded. Instead I had to separately Google these suggestions to determine if they appealed to me. Many did, so even more on the wish-list!

I believe some of the books featured, especially the older editions, might be difficult to source outside of their original language. Hopefully western, English speaking publishers will start to realise the growing desire for works outside of the usual dominion. I don’t recall too many Hispanic/Latino or Oceania authors, which is a shame. A must-needed resource for all bibliophiles.… (mais)

This is a great reference for anyone who wants to add some international flavour to their reading life. I do have two small complaints, the first being that the plot summaries for each book were much longer than I would have liked. I don't want to know that much about a book when I start it. The second was, that quite a few of the suggested titles are older and will be harder to source. However, despite the criticism, I still really enjoyed this book and got a large list of possible titles that I think I will like.… (mais)

This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelves in 50 Books, by Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne, Kadija George Sesay, is an excellent collection of books for those either wanting to venture into postcolonial literature or expand their reading.

The introduction is really quite good, no matter what self-proclaimed snobs say. The writers explain their goals, what was included and why, as well as offering some broad background on postcolonialism and the literature. Rather than limit themselves to those already reading a diverse selection of literature, or ignore this group, they made a comprehensive list that includes works by well-known as well as, in the US and Europe, lesser-known writers. I have many of these books already in my library and the suggested further reading offered me some new ideas. For those who haven't read most of these, they are a great place to begin.

While each book has both an overview and some contextualization to explain their significance, everything doesn't have a subheading, so to learn why each work is important you have to read each entry. Those skimming will miss that and may feel that there isn't that feature. It's in there.

I would recommend this to any reader who is looking for more good books to read. Whether you already read a wide variety of books or not this will offer you many excellent suggestions. Some of the entries will also shed some new insights into works you may have already read.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)