It’s pretty gross how ignored a fucking giant arse slice of the world drenched in history and cultures is.
I recall reading an article by a black fiction writer who said that among the difficulties facing black authors is where their fiction is even placed in a bookstore; he (she? Can’t recall who the author was) said their book was placed in the ‘black interest’ section, meaning their entirely fictional, sci-fi novel was sharing the same space with books about Martin Luther King. Most likely novels regarding Africanfuturism would also be placed in the same section and most wouldn’t even know they exist.
Ooof that sucks. I guess that is a bit of a tricky one in the bookstore. On one hand it’s just fiction, on the other you might want to specifically seek out work by black authors that is explicitly including themes of black experienced or cultures in fiction.
Getting pigeonholed in the latter though just means you don’t get seen by anyone seeking you out. Probably being in 2 places in a physical store would be good. Or a store just rotating through highlighting different authorial perspectives.
I recall reading an article by a black fiction writer who said that among the difficulties facing black authors is where their fiction is even placed in a bookstore; he (she? Can’t recall who the author was) said their book was placed in the ‘black interest’ section, meaning their entirely fictional, sci-fi novel was sharing the same space with books about Martin Luther King. Most likely novels regarding Africanfuturism would also be placed in the same section and most wouldn’t even know they exist.
Ooof that sucks. I guess that is a bit of a tricky one in the bookstore. On one hand it’s just fiction, on the other you might want to specifically seek out work by black authors that is explicitly including themes of black experienced or cultures in fiction.
Getting pigeonholed in the latter though just means you don’t get seen by anyone seeking you out. Probably being in 2 places in a physical store would be good. Or a store just rotating through highlighting different authorial perspectives.
if you’re shelving a few copies of a book put some in each section
sorry i just woke up
Sounds exactly like how in music “R&B” is just the record label’s way of saying ‘black people music’.