What we're reading: Adjei-Brenyah & Sasha Kutabah Sarago
Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on, or the music we’re loving.
Joe Murray is reading Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
I recently read Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut short story collection Friday Black, which perfectly encapsulated the exhilarating imagination that I search for in short stories.
The stories are deeply off-kilter and weird – in one, retail workers fend off Black Friday shoppers as if they were zombie hordes – but each is animated by Adjei-Brenyah's fiery passion and rage towards the racist, late-capitalist and deeply broken world we live in. It makes me feel like I've been electrocuted (in a good way).
Chris Gordon is reading Gigorou: First Nations Wisdom and Womanhood by Sasha Kutabah Sarago
I've just finished reading Gigorou: First Nations Wisdom and Womanhood by fierce and generous author Sasha Kutabah Sarago. Gigorou means beautiful in Jirrbal, the language of Sasha’s grandmother. This is her story, but it is also a call to reckon with how beauty is defined and considered. It is a story that shows how insidious racism is in all our lives and the affect that this has on female empowerment but also on our understanding of how we live now. Imagine that and then consider the ramifications if you are Blak woman.
While this an easy story to read – Sasha’s relaxed prose makes this book accessible – it will provoke fury, disbelief, shame and hope within the reader. The fury lies with stories of injustice. The disbelief with our country’s inability to reconcile our past. The shame because we all know better. The hope implicit in this story though will bring you to your knees.
Sasha searches for the meaning of beauty through her various roles in the fashion industry, but the answers are found through creation stories, through conversations, and through a reclaiming. Consider this book a manifesto – words taken from the introduction by Chelsea Watego. Consider this book an insightful gift from a beautiful woman strutting her stuff.
An episode about this work is coming soon to the Readings Podcast. Preorder Gigorou (publishing February 28) here.
