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Book ClubsAnnouncing Women Reading In Translation
Spurred on by this post, we're starting an international fiction book club. The idea is to read fiction works by women, in translation, from all over the world. We will rotate continents, reading 3 books on each continent before moving to the next, and we're starting with Africa.
The first book, chosen by consensus between me and @AriadneOnNaxos, is Specters by Radwa Ashour, an Egyptian author. Here's a blurb:
Winner of the Cairo International Book Fair Prize. Specters tells the story of Radwa and Shagar, two women born the same day. The narrative alternates between their childhoods, their work lives (one a professor of literature and the other of history), their married and unmarried lives, and their respective books. With her novel's structure, Ashour pays tribute to the Arab qareen (double or companion, and sometimes demon) and the ancient Egyptian ka (the spirit that is born with and accompanies an individual through life and beyond).
If anyone wants to participate in this round, I suggest that we reconvene to discuss this novel October 3rd. (I'm proposing such a late date because it took more than a week for my local shop to have the book shipped in.)
Meanwhile, if anyone has suggestions for the next book, or any other suggestions, please leave a comment! The only requirements for the next book is that it is a fiction work, written by an African woman, which has been translated into English. I will leave some lists and resources in the comments, but ideas from any source are okay.
As if.
Back in the day I used to just default to "they" for everyone. I can't be the only one.
I know that most users on here have an issue with the universal "they" in some cases, which is understandable if you're referring to someone directly by their name or even including a picture and that they're clearly male/female, and yet, you use "they" to describe them frequently without a she/he thrown in, I completely understand that and it's ridiculous. But I use these pronouns frequently for generalizing statements or for anonymity..
I used it 3 times in this post. (not including quotations)
My kids do this and I think it’s because of Rick Riordan books and/or kids’ tv. We’ve been pretty supervisory but there are things that slip through, and if I clamp down harder, it will just make them rebel more when they’re older.
It’s starting to become standard usage. It drives me bananas. Like, the local news uses “they” when discussing a local politician who is not gender special in any way and I’ve heard it in commercials.
It’s so terrible because it makes language unclear. If you’re talking about Mary Smith, local female politician and you just toss in a “they” when listeners heard her speak and you also have been using “she” it just causes confusion.
I hate speakers using "they/them" for any damn reason, but it does make me feel good to think that someday TIMs would all be called "they" just like everyone else. No gender special pronoun feefees. hehe
Lol exactly. There is a 99.9% chance that this was totally accidental
lmao at this one comment