Letters to a Writer of Colour
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Letters to a Writer of Colour
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Narrated by:
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Deepa Anappara
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Taymour Soomro
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full cast
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Filled with empathy and wisdom, personal experiences and creative inspiration, this is a vital collection of essays on the power of literature and the craft of writing from an international array of writers of colour.
What if we reconsidered our assumptions about how fiction should be written? And can we then apply our discoveries to both what we read and how we read? This book explores these questions and encourages us into a more inclusive conversation about storytelling, featuring:
• Taymour Soomro on resisting rigid stories about who you are
• Madeleine Thien on how writing builds the room in which it can exist
• Amitava Kumar on why authenticity isn't a license we carry in our wallets
• Tahmima Anam on giving herself permission to be funny
• Ingrid Rojas Contreras on the bodily challenge of writing about trauma
• Zeyn Joukhadar on queering English and the power of refusing to translate ourselves
• Kiese Laymon on hearing that no one wants to read the story that you want to write
• Deepa Anappara on writing even through conditions that impede the creation of art
Plus essays from Tiphanie Yanique, Xiaolu Guo, Jamil Jan Kochai, Vida Cruz-Borja, Femi Kayode, Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Leila Aboulela, Myriam Gurba, Mohammed Hanif and Sharlene Teo.
Read by Deepa Anaparra, Taymour Soomro, Madeleine Thien, Amitava Kumar, Tahmima Anam, Tiphanie Yanique, Marisol Ramirez, Cindy Kay, Zeyn Joukhadar, Jamil Jan Kochai, Nic Villasenor, Cary Hite, Simone McIntyre, Susan Nezami, Carolina Hoyos, Aaron Goodson, Mohammed Hanif and Mirai.
©2023 Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Electric essays that speak to the experience of writing from the periphery...a guide, a comfort, and a call all at once." (Laila Lalami, author of Conditional Citizens)
"The problem of the color line, as WEB Du Bois called it, has existed in literature and literary criticism as much as social and geopolitical realms, and systematic neglect by publishers, critics and readers has only exacerbated it. Excavating long-buried experiences of rejection, incomprehension and misunderstanding, Letters to a Writer of Colour defines the problem with precision and passion, and also outlines ways to transcend it." (Pankaj Mishra)
"I knew I would love this book as soon as I laid eyes on the title and the list of contributors, and it didn't disappoint - far from it. These essays provide so much wisdom and warmth, giving us a sense of restoration, of community. They take a refreshingly holistic view of the craft and balance real technical insight with deeply gentle humanity." (Okechukwu Nzelu, author of Here Again Now)
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Looking for Lorraine
- The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story5 out of 5 stars 141
Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Radiant
- By Rose Brookins on 03-20-19
By: Imani Perry
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To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,066
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 940
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 934
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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4 out of 5 stars
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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Origins of The Wheel of Time
- The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan
- By: Michael Livingston, Harriet McDougal - contributor, Robert Jordan
- Narrated by: Harriet McDougal, Kate Reading, Michael Kramer, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
Take a deep dive into the real-world history and mythology that inspired the world of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time®. This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was, how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature. Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and longtime fans.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Agenda driven ideological bend.
- By Maxwell on 06-19-23
By: Michael Livingston, and others
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Poetry in Person
- Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets
- By: Lucille Clifton, Alexander Neubauer - editor, Eamon Grennan, and others
- Narrated by: Alexander Neubauer
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
This first audio edition of Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), invites listeners into an intimate classroom with eight acclaimed poets. Full of compelling, in-depth conversation about manuscripts and drafts by the poets themselves, plus readings of the finished poems, these historic recordings offer one of the most detailed portraits ever produced of how poems are actually made.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By d on 08-28-16
By: Lucille Clifton, and others
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Bookworm
- A Memoir of Childhood Reading
- By: Lucy Mangan
- Narrated by: Lucy Mangan
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4 out of 5 stars 31
When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one. She was whisked away to Narnia and Kirrin Island and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy and played by the tracks with the Railway Children.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The author’s sarcasm
- By Phil B. on 10-01-24
By: Lucy Mangan
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How Fiction Works
- By: James Wood
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 131
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
Ranging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Educational!
- By Don on 05-04-09
By: James Wood
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The Art of Inventing Hope
- Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel
- By: Howard Reich
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story5 out of 5 stars 70
The Art of Inventing Hope offers an unprecedented, in-depth conversation between the world's most revered Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, and a son of survivors, Howard Reich. During the last four years of Wiesel's life, he met frequently with Reich in New York, Chicago, and Florida - and spoke often on the phone - to discuss the subject that linked them: both Wiesel and Reich's father, Robert Reich, were liberated from Buchenwald death camp on April 11, 1945. What started as an interview assignment from the Chicago Tribune evolved into a friendship and partnership.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a view into post holocaust survivors recovery
- By Lance Strosser on 02-17-21
By: Howard Reich
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Manifesto
- On Never Giving Up
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Bernardine Evaristo
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
From the best-selling and Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Glorious performance and inspiring story
- By Maggi Morehouse on 01-25-22
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Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story
- A Life of David Foster Wallace
- By: D. T. Max
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 384
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 342
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 341
David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
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The Glamour of Grammar
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Roy Peter Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Early in the history of English, glamour and grammar were the same word, linked to enchantment and magical spells. Now grammar brings to mind language bullies and bored-out-of-their-skulls students. Roy Peter Clark, one of America’s most influential writing teachers, wants to change that by putting the glamour back into grammar.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Wasteful
- By ABID on 12-05-13
By: Roy Peter Clark
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Reading Like a Writer
- By: Francine Prose
- Narrated by: Nanette Savard
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 233
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4 out of 5 stars 145
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters and discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire listeners to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Practical, literate, generous
- By Gare on 04-13-08
By: Francine Prose
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Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
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Girl Gurl Grrrl
- On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic
- By: Kenya Hunt
- Narrated by: Kenya Hunt, Ebele Okobi, Jessica Horn, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspired
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-21
By: Kenya Hunt
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Papyrus
- The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
- By: Irene Vallejo, Charlotte Whittle - translator
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand-copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Hunter Pechin on 12-15-22
By: Irene Vallejo, and others
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The Enchanted Hour
- The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
- By: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Narrated by: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 263
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 234
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Story5 out of 5 stars 231
A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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advice to take to heart
- By Brian on 04-30-20