The Books Briefing: A Struggle to Breathe

📚 The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

📚 Surviving the White Gaze, by Rebecca Carroll

How art can double as historical corrective

“The young women [Saidiya Hartman] writes about were stubbornly demanding new forms of personal liberation, simply by living their lives as they pleased.”

📚 Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments,  by Saidiya Hartman

What stories about racial trauma leave out

“[Cathy Park Hong] describes herself as working against an unfortunate archetype: the narrative that presents racial trauma as a kind of catalyst for personal growth.”

📚 Minor Feelings,  by Cathy Park Hong

Where fantasy meets Black Lives Matter

“Tales such as {Tomi] Adeyemi’s and her predecessors’ wield a magic beyond the imaginative spells they cast. Their work illuminates the ways in which speculative fiction has in a sense been about the stories of people of color all along.”

📚 Children of Blood and Bone,  by Tomi Adeyemi

How literature inspires empathy

“The Automobile Club of Egypt is set in 1940s Cairo, during the last days of British colonial rule. … The book subverts the opulent setting by casting its narrative lot with the underclass, the servants and sycophants who serve oppressive masters but mock them behind their backs.”

📚 The Automobile Club of Egypt,  by Alaa Al Aswany

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About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Myles Poydras. The book he’s thinking about right now is Citizen, by Claudia Rankine.

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Myles Poydras is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic.