friends

Langston Hughes in Uzbekistan

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It’s 1932.

Movie roles promised to 22 Black Americans.

“Black and White” in the

Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.

Treated like royalty, wined, dined, at

their own expense.

Hughes–ridiculous script. All went

home except Hughes. He stayed,

traveled, saw cotton grown from Aral

Sea water–now no water, desolate

desert.

In Tashkent, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Tartars

honored him, flowers, fruit.

No English.

He met a Red Army Captain from

high Pamir Mountains. Hughes

described him, Black with Oriental eyes.

Hughes called him Yeah Man.

He called Hughes Yang Zoon.

Weeks together never understanding

each other’s words.

Hughes’ poetry book

“The Weary Blues” first

American book translated to

Uzbek. Original English version

lost. He describes this new place:

“Look: here

Is a country

Where everyone shines.”

Note: You can find a version of this book translated into English from Uzbek by Muhabbat Bakeava and Kevin Young.

Book 33 for 2024: “Three Daughters of Eve”, Elif Shafak

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Shafak is a popular Turkish writer. One of my all time favorite books is her novel about the life of Rumi.

“Three Daughters of Eve” takes place one evening in Istanbul in 2016. Peri, one of the daughters from the title, is on her way to a fancy party when a thief snatches her purse out of the back seat of her car which is stalled in traffic. She parks the car and chases him through back alleys. As she fights him for her purse, an old photo falls to the ground. It portrays three young women and their university professor. This photo jars her mind, takes her back to her time at Oxford University when she was a student there in 2000-2002, her childhood in Istanbul in the 1980s and 90s, and her life. She thinks back to her life with her two friends, Shirin, an adventurous Iranian young woman, and Mona, a devout Egyptian Muslim who word a headscarf out of choice. And then there is the famous professor Azur, whose class on God either makes students hate or love him and the scandal that caused Peri to return to Istanbul.

Until her daughter, who was in the car and eventually chases her mother down in the alley, sees the photo, no one, except her husband, seems to have known Peri even went to Oxford. Her daughter mentions it at the party while everyone is arguing about East and West and politics and who has the most money and how they acquired it. Peri tries to deflect questions, changes the subject, and keeps remembering her past: her parents, a father quite irreligious, her mother a devout Muslim, their endless arguments and hostility, her brothers, her childhood and her stint at Oxford.

Through the story of Peri’s life, this novel explores personal identity, East-West history and politics, the meaning of marriage and friendship.

Book 29 for 2024: “The Covenant of Water”, Abraham Verghese

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I waited for more than a year to get this book via the library. It stayed on the best seller lists for months and months and has been translated into more than twenty languages. It is the saga of one family from 1900 to 1977. The setting is the Kerala area of India (I have been to India but not this area). It is unique compared to much of India in that Christians, Muslims, and Hindus live in relative peace with each other. Unlike the more arid parts of India, this is a place dominated by water which is a major theme in the book. Several of the main characters in the book suffer from an inherited Condition, as they refer to it. In every generation, at least one person dies from drowning.

The book begins with a 12 year old girl being married off to a 40 some year old widower. She has to travel far from her family via water. He is kind and patient but unlike her, who loves the water, he will travel many extra miles to avoid even traveling by water. He is terrified of water because he has the Condition. Eventually, she becomes the family matriarch, Big Ammachi. This is her story and the story of her descendants, the Christian community in Kerala, and the fate of one British man who remained in India after independence. It is also the story of the progress of medicine (Big Ammachi’s granddaughter is determined to become a doctor and find what causes the Condition) and how one family experiences many hardships to further future generations.

The author, Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford, details this fictional family’s history for several generations in 715 pages. It sounds daunting but I kept reading because I wanted to know what happens to all the people. At the same time, I found this to be one of the saddest books I have ever read. Due to the Condition and leprosy, for which there was no cure at the time, many people’s lives are horrendously affected. I did learn a lot about medicine and medical advances, how leprosy destroyed lives, Kerala and, much to my amazement, that many Christians in Kerala continued to follow the Hindu caste system.

Book 28 for 2024: “Gun Island”, Amitav Ghosh

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A tale based on a Bengali legend about a merchant called the Gun Merchant, Bonduki Sadagar, this novel not only takes place in the mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans but also in Venice. It has nothing to do with guns but demonstrates how differences in language use among languages and translations can lead to total mistranslation. The narrator is an older, male, Bengali, rare book dealer who grew up in Kolkata but now lives in Brooklyn most of the year and goes back “home” occasionally. When he meets a distant relative by chance at a party, he finds himself enmeshed in the Gun Merchant tale and finds himself in search of a remote shrine where a king cobra lives. His adventure leads him to meet two young men and reconnect with an old friend, an Italian woman who is a famous historian.

What fascinated me most about this novel was learning all about the immense number of historical connections between the Bengali part of India and Venice especially related to trade and persons of Jewish descent. It is also filled with lessons in relationships among languages and history. For example, I learned the origin of the word ghetto. During the 17th century a part of Venice, Getto, was where their large and prosperous Jewish population was forced to live, Venice being one of few European cities where Jews were safe. Thus the word designating a part of the city became the word ghetto.

It is also a story about the risks and dangers of immigrants trying to get to Europe. I learned many Bengalis, mostly from Bangladesh, live in Venice and the numerous historical connections between the Bengali speaking areas of the world and Venice.

Book 27 for 2024: “The New Naturals”, Gabriel Bump

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Rio, a young Black woman, and her husband, Gibraltar, academics living in Boston, become concerned and disillusioned with their current lives. She finds an abandoned restaurant on top of a hill in western Massachusetts. Heartbroken after the death of her newborn, she is determined to create a safe, new, underground society beneath the restaurant. She finds a benefactor and her dream begins to take place. Via word of mouth, others hear about this safe place for the “lost” and disillusioned and head there. These include two homeless men from Chicago, a successful, young journalist, and a former soccer player.

Can such a society work? What happens if they run out of money? Regardless, can the care individuals have for each other save them?

Note: Depending on what kind of novels you prefer, this may or may not be a book for you. Several of the characters have serious mental issues, some think it is ok to resort to violence to save what they believe in and find ways to justify their actions, some seem very, very “lost”.

Book 16 for 2024: “Digging to America”, Anne Tyler

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This book details the lives and relationships between two families, one native to the US and the other Iranian immigrants. When the young couple in each family adopt a Korean baby, their lives become intertwined. Every year on the anniversary of the arrival of the babies, they take turns hosting an Arrival Party. Two of the grandparents, one on each side, one male and one female, find their lives linked in unexpected ways. The book explores what it means to be an immigrant, how the native born sometimes view those from another country, and questions to what extent a person’s character is due to culture and what is simply the way that person remains regardless of culture. While a serious exploration of culture, family relationships, friendship, and cultural adaption, the book is also quite funny. I found myself sometimes laughing out loud and at other times feeling sad. I also found myself thinking more about my own personality and its development.

Book 11, 2024: ” Frida’s Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo”

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The author of this book, Guadelupe Rivera, is the daughter of Diego Rivera by the woman to whom he was married before he married Frida. Diego went on a trip to Russia and his then wife, the author’s mother, became attached to her previous boyfriend, the poet Jorge Cuesta. She and Diego divorced and then he married Frida. Eventually, the two couples became friendly and at one point they all lived in the same house.

Thirteen years after Diego married Frida, the author moved in with them. This book details her life living with Frida and her father, how Frida learned to cook, how she decorated the Blue House in Coyoacan, the fiestas, the food, the adventures. The book includes photos and recipes of Frida and Diego’s favorite foods, photos of the house, and places the author visited with Frida. It is also a story of many of Mexico’s famous people at the time.

I own several books about Frida but this one is the most revealing and intimate in many ways. If you like Mexican food and find the life and art of Frida and Diego of interest, read this book.

Note: It was also written by the journalist Pierre Marie-Colle with photos by Ignacio Urquiza.

One Book a Week-53: “The Last Ride of the Pony Express”, Will Grant

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Since I was born in St. Joseph, MO, and grew up 30 miles from there, the Pony Express is something I have heard about my entire life. Therefore, when I saw this book at the local library, I decided to read it. What a fun and informative book!! In 2019, Will Grant, who lives in Santa Fe, NM, decided to locate the right horses, transport them to St. Joseph, and ride the route of the Pony Express from there to Sacramento, CA, the other end of the trail. After the sheriff’s department escorted him across the bridge to Kansas, he managed to avoid cities for the most of the 2000 mile trip. This book is his account of the old Pony Express Stations, ranchers, farmers, historians, businessmen, ordinary people, and wild horses he encounters on his 142 day adventure. Although many have written books about the Pony Express, he is the only person who has followed the entire route on horseback.

One Book a Week-50: “The Poet X”, Elizabeth Acevedo

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I purchased this book not long after it won the National Book Award, but never managed to get around to reading it until recently. I love this book. Yes, it won in the youth category, but since I have worked with teens for decades, I “get” it. It is a novel in poetry where the narrator, a 15 year old Dominican Latina, Xiomara, who lives in Harlem, keeps a poetry journal to stay sane. Her very religious Catholic die-hard Mom frequently drives her crazy with rules like she can never talk to a boy, much less date one. Her dad is a bit of a playboy and less strict. Her twin brother is a genius who won a scholarship to a fancy private school, and her best friend, Caridad, is hyper religious. Yet these young people all keep each other “together”. Her English teacher realizes Xiomara has a gift and encourages her to become involved in poetry slam events. She cannot see how this is possible given her mother’s attitude toward her poetry. You do not have to be a teenager to enjoy this book. In fact, if you think you do not understand teenagers, I suggest you read this book. It will enlighten you.

One Book a Week-34: “If I Survive You”, Jonathan Escoffery

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After reading about this book and its author in a recent issue of the Sunday “Los Angeles Times”, I saw it while wandering around the local library and checked it out. Although the author’s work has been published in various magazines, this is his first book.

This collection of short stories reads like a novel because the characters in the stories are either identical or related from Trelawny and his brother Delano to their ill-fated cousin, Cukie, all of whom are the descendants of Jamaican immigrants living in or near Miami, Florida. Sometimes excluded because they are Black, they face other challenges, e.g. Trelawny because people cannot figure out what he is ethnically or racially due to his complexion and hair, light and only somewhat curly. All struggle to discover who they are and where they belong, if anywhere.

While many of their experiences remain heart wrenching, Escoffery has the ability to also make their stories funny. I kept think of some works by Sherman Alexie whose stories are both horrifying and hilarious.

Note: The next three books will remain anonymous and no blogs about them because they are for a project and I cannot report about them. I will be blogging poems and essays about other topics.