THE LIST: BOOKS TO READ

A peek at the Stevenson library

Stevenson gallery staff took to Instagram to share pictures of a small selection of black and queer literature from their personal libraries that have helped them and continue to help them in their “respective journeys towards listening, learning and confronting bias”. To view the books they chose, some of which are expanded on below, visit instagram.com/stories/ highlights/181072 73920084446/?h l=en

by Santu Mofokeng

This is a collection of photographs of working and middle-class black folk taken between 1890 and 1950. With the pictures being commissioned and taken by a black photographer, the collection is an opportunity to engage with how black folk imagined and portrayed themselves when the portrayal was free of coercion.

by Binyavanga Wainaina

by K Sello Duiker

While trying to understand the inherited trauma of being born in a country with a violent past, university student Tshepo seemingly suffers a cannabis-induced psychotic episode that lands him in a psychiatric facility. Through these and other events revolving around the protagonist, the writer examines the ways in which queerness, race, capitalism and neo-colonialism intersect do not work for the good of marginalised groups.

From April to September 2017, the Brooklyn Museum presented the

brooklynmuseum.org/ exhibitions/ we_wanted_a_ revolution

by Koleka Putuma

D’souza

by Aruna

The 2017 Whitney Biennial featured white artist Dana Schutz’s painting of a lynched Emmett Till. In 1979, the Artist Space in New York had an exhibition titled The Nigger Drawing. Ten years earlier, the Metropolitan Museum of Art did not include work from a black artist for its Harlem on My Mind exhibition. With these incidents in mind, Aruna D’souza examines how artistic freedom and freedom of speech have masked the ways in which racism continues to manifest itself in the art world.

Mda

by Zakes

Zakes Mda goes back to the period when European’s fascination for amazulu had heightened because they defeated the British in the Battle of Isandlwana. With that cue, a group of Zulu folk were uprooted and sent to Europe and then the United States by William Leonard Hunt to perform in circuses. Very little of their stories is recorded.

As a step toward restoring their humanity, Mda uses historical fiction to fill the gaps in their stories.

Selected by Zaza Hlalethwa