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@indukisreading

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[In semi-hiatus this fall as life got very busy. ]
📚 Reading and sometimes sharing my thoughts

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SORDIDEZ by E. G. Condé

“our lives are like trees, every choice a new branch, a new future.”

I enjoyed reading SORDIDEZ, a cli-fi, sci-fi, Tainofuturist punk novella, in June. #ReadCaribbean #PrideMonth

The book opens with the arrival of a mega-hurricane in Puerto Rico and travels between Puerto Rico and Yucatán of the near future, where communities are ravaged by environmental desolation, virus, genocidal dictatorship, and centuries of colonial capitalist exploitation.

In this near-future world, which eerily feels like a palimpsest of the past and the present, readers meet memorable characters who organize decolonial resistance from below, reclaim indigenous heritage, and recover the self and the land.

It was an exciting read, pulsing with energy! My only complaint is that I wish it were longer, so I could engage with the characters and the places more fully. (I also wish I had known more about Mayan and Taino spirituality, but perhaps it is right that this remains less accessible to me.)

I’m looking forward to reading more from the author. Consider picking up SORDIDEZ if you are looking for a slim but electrifying, high-stimulation summer read.

#Sordidez #EGConde #PuertoRicanLiterature

[ID: There is a dense forest in the background. In the middle, toward the right, is a book cover in green, blue, red, and orange hues. There is a person’s face on the cover. The book’s title is Sordidez.] by @indukisreading

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2 months ago

VELVET by Huzama Habayeb (tr. Kay Heikkinen)

This morning, looking at the verdant green of summer bursting with life, I remembered Hawwa, whose story kept me engrossed earlier this year.

Hawwa is the main character of VELVET. She was born and raised in Baqa’a Camp in Jordan, surrounded by other displaced Palestinian families. She learns to sew and tailor from Jordanian dressmaker Sitt Qamar and makes a living as a seamstress. VELVET captures one very important day of Hawwa’s from dawn to night, with lengthy flashbacks that show the lives of Hawwa, her family, and Sitt Qamar leading up to that day. Habayeb’s writing is incredibly lyrical and sensual; you can feel the weather and the crowd, smell the air, and run your hand over a fabric with Hawwa.

“The rain beat down viciously on naked life, its hard drops splitting the rough crust of the earth. Daggers of water pierced the dusty flanks of the ground, thrusting rapidly and in quick succession, as if laden with emotion, or haunted by ancient sorrow, or filled with deeply buried rancor.”

“[...] the earth shook to the rhythm of hundreds of dabka dances performed by the young men of the camp. They stamped the earth with all the force of passion, and the dust flew into the air, intersecting with the strings of decorative lights, so the motes suspended in the air looked like scattered flecks of gold.”

To me, VELVET is a book about women to whom the stingy world denies joy and whose herculean effort keeps the dream of life from flickering out. It is also a book about a refugee camp and the many traumas it holds.

I loved this heart-wrenching book and suggest you turn on a Fairuz playlist and plunge into the rainy day that opens VELVET.

Thank you, @translatedgems, for the book recommendation.

#Velvet #HuzamaHabayeb #KayHeikkinen #PalestinianLiterature

CW: child abuse, domestic abuse by @indukisreading

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2 months ago

@booksbooksandbookmarks tagged me to share #bookstocheerusup. That made me think about Billy-Ray Belcourt’s poetry collection, the idea of an entire life, which I read with #indigenousreadingcircle recently. About our individual and collective grief as well as our capacity to find and share joy. About lines like the one quoted below, that would keep me sustained for weeks to come.

“Nothing excites
me as much as the possibility of transcending
history. Somehow, there are still
so many kinds of light.”

In the past few years, I often returned to poetry reading whenever I felt wretched. Every day, someone out there is writing, reading, and/or sharing a poem. And there are small, independent zine makers and publishers putting poems together in collections. Belcourt talks about hope as something solid that can be “passed around, like cutlery” and to me, poems are that cutlery.

So I’m sharing my rainbow spread of poetry books as my #bookstocheerusup. Most are TBR. Sending love to you all, the broken-hearted.

• Hair on Fire: Afghan Women Poets (by Mahbouba Ibrahimi, Maral Taheri, Karima Shabrang, Mariam Meetra, & Nadia Anjuman, tr. Fatemeh Shams, Armen Davoudian, Zuzanna Olszewska, Hajar Hussaini, Sabrina Nouri, Samantha Cosentino, Diana Arterian, & Marina Omar)
• No Way in the Skin without This Bloody Embrace (by Jean D’Amerique, tr. Conor Bracken)
• An Optimism (by Cameron Awkward-Rich)
• Handful of Salt (by Hajal Ahmad, tr. Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse, Mewan Nahro Said Sofi, Darya Abdul-Karim Ali Najm, & Barbara Goldberg)
• the idea of an entire life (by Billy-Ray Belcourt)
• My Dream Job (by Norman Erikson Pasaribu)
• The Sea-Migrations: Tahriib (by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf, tr. Clare Pollard)
• Something about Living (by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha)
• ‘Āina Hānau: Birthland (by Brandy Nālani McDougall)
• The Sea Needs No Ornament / El Mar No Necesita Ornamento: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Caribbean Women Poets (list of contributors in comments because there are many.)
• Goddess Muscle (by Karlo Mila)
• Bluff (by Danez Smith)

#poetry by @indukisreading

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3 months ago

HURRICANE WATCH by Olive Senior

I spent most of June reading poems from HURRICANE WATCH, a compilation of Jamaican poet Olive Senior’s four previously published poetry collections as well as new, uncollected poems. I think this is my favorite book of 2026 so far.

The poems made me think about the threads that hold and carry one forward. Threads that connect the poet to Caribbean history and the continuing legacy of colonialism, to the land and its flora and fauna, to her literary ancestors, to the land’s ancient deities, to the generations of her people who faced hurricanes, to the women and children of the island, to home.

Sometimes like the silky threads that fly spiderlings up in the sky, sometimes like the threads in the hands of a young woman mending clothes at night, and at other times like the threads of a web woven with stories, these threads become a symphony creating a rich tapestry across time and space and transport readers to the poet’s island home.

What a wonderful gift to readers. I’m sharing one of the many, many poems I loved in the collection. I happened to have read it while feeling homesick, and the poem was magic.

MOONSHINE DOLLY

Each full moon

I lay flat on the ground
with outstretched limbs
while you outlined my body
with bits of glass, mirrors
stones.

I would rise
leaving Moonshine Dolly
my ghostly self
behind.

One night
flat on my back
gazing at the full moon’s face
I was too scared to rise
for she was pulling and pulling –

“Get up,” you said,
“You’re spoiling the game.”

To Moonshine Dolly I whispered: “Hold me tight.”

For she was pulling so
and if I rose
you’d run to grab hold
and you’d rise too

and all the children
would come running after
and there we’d be
holding on to each other

leaving far below

Moonshine Dolly
gazing
at this chain of children
rising and rising

to the moon.

#HurricaneWatch #OliveSenior #poetry #ReadCaribbean #JamaicanLiterature by @indukisreading

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3 months ago

PANDORA by Ana Paula Pacheco (tr. Julia Sanches) 🇧🇷

2020, São Paulo, Brazil.

All the bewildering craziness of COVID is unleashed. Tens of thousands of people are dying or suffering from income loss, while in utter absurdity, the stock market soars and corporate giants celebrate a record boom.

Ana, a literature professor, is rapidly losing her mind after her partner’s death from Covid. Ana goes through disastrous relationships with soul-sucking animal partners. She tries to hold on to her job while under the heavy influence of medications.

The book seems to contain commentaries about patriarchy, class divide, the carnivorous appetite of capitalism, and our self-annihilatory proclivity to uphold a system. But maybe it’s me making that up, because Ana’s thoughts are spiraling, unhinged, and not very accessible.

It’s a bizarre book, in an interesting way, for readers who don’t mind navigating strange territories.

I enjoyed reading and discussing Pandora with #TranslatedGemsBookClub. 🙏

CW: body horror, animal death, death of a loved one, rape

#Pandora #AnaPaulaPacheco #JuliaSanches #BrazilianLiterature

[ID: A hand is holding a lavender-colored book titled Pandora. An outline of a woman carrying a pangolin is on the book cover. In the background is an abstract painting in blue, pink, and purple color tones with black stripes and white rings.] by @indukisreading

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4 months ago

What did you read for #readafricamonth?

I finally read DECOLONISING THE MIND by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o! 🇰🇪 A truly inspiring classic.

“I know whom I was writing about but whom was I writing for?”

This question weighed heavily on the mind of the renowned Kenyan writer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, since the success of his English-language novels about the struggles of Kenyan people.

Born and raised in Kenya within the four walls of British colonial education, where children were forbidden to speak their native language on school grounds and read texts written by European writers, he witnessed how such colonial education destroys and undervalues African culture and history and alienates people from their natural environment.

Understanding language as a carrier of culture, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, in this 1986 publication, announced that he would no longer write in English. Writing in his native language, Gikuyu, was a decision made as part of a broader anticolonial movement to make literature relevant to the peasants he fought alongside. His endeavor in participatory theater with Gikuyu-speaking peasants, for which he was imprisoned, is a clear example of why he believed writing in an African language, rather than in English, was crucial for post-colonial Africa to forge paths that reflected its culture, history, and dignity. It was a move made with revolutionary hope. He also advocated for schools to teach African literature.

“[...] all sides were agreed on the need to include African, European, and other literatures. But what would be the centre? And what would be the periphery, so to speak? How would the centre relate to the periphery?”

DECOLONISING THE MIND also made me reflect on my own reading. About the difference between reading diversely and reading for change—how reading can reflect our yearning for collective liberation from what we choose to read to the attitude we hold when approaching what we read.

Thank you @readsandart for hosting #ReadAfricaMonth in May! Let every month be Read Africa Month!

#Ngugiwathiongo #DecolonisingTheMind #KenyanLiterature by @indukisreading

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4 months ago

HOME by Leila S. Chudori (tr. from the Indonesian by John H. McGlynn) 🇮🇩

Dimas Suryo, a young journalist in Jakarta, left Indonesia in 1965 to attend a convention in Cuba in his colleague's place. Shortly after Dimas’s departure, Soeharto assumes power in Indonesia, and a years-long tidal wave of violence sweeps across the country. Dimas’s close friends and family members are imprisoned, interrogated, and/or murdered, while Dimas is forced into exile in Paris.

HOME consists of three parts: Part One tells Dimas’s story, how he ended up in Paris, the people he meets, and the new life he attempts to make. Part Two is the story of Dimas’s daughter in Paris in 1998 and focuses on the diaspora’s search for one’s roots. Part Three tells the story of the people who remained in Indonesia, those who struggle with the trauma of the past, and the young Indonesians fighting for change.

The book wasn’t a love at first sight for me. I didn’t initially find the main characters attractive, and the time jumps were confusing. But it slowly drew me in, and by the time I finished the chunky book, I felt as if I had spent many years with the characters and deeply felt for them. I especially appreciated Part Three, where the author didn’t shy away from the difficult stories of the past and the remaining challenges Indonesian society faces. It is an ambitious book, trying to capture Indonesia in 1965 and 1998, as well as diaspora experiences. Overall, the book successfully sheds light on the traumatic historical moment and its reverberating impact on the victims and their families.

A perfect companion read for THE JAKARTA METHOD by Vincent Bevins!

Thank you @obsessivelybookishjojo and @ktlee.writes for hosting the readalong. Though I didn’t get to participate actively on Discord, it was a great motivator for me to pick up this book that had been on my TBR for some time. Now, I am excited to check out a newly opened Indonesian restaurant in my neighborhood and try their rendang! 🤩

#Home #LeilaChudori #JohnMcGlynn #IndonesianLiterature #HistoricalFiction

[ID: On a deep blue woven fabric, there is an e-reader showing the cover page of Home.] by @indukisreading

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4 months ago

Some bookish reflections:

One of my reading goals this year is to read one history book a month. It’s been a terrific learning journey: I felt the centuries-long pulse of Puerto Rican resistance and pride (Puerto Rico: A National History), traveled across time and space following the great connected body of water that is Black History (Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People), learned that my people’s painful history is a shared history repeated and calibrated in many parts of the world (The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World), and read about the anti-colonial armed resistance for Algerian Independence (Inside the Battle of Algiers: Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter). This month, I’ve been slowly reading Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.

It hasn’t been easy to read them, as someone who grew up mostly shieded from these histories. At times, I feel so angry at our willful ignorance (including my own) and fall victim to absolutist or binary thinking (typical of an eager newcomer, perhaps). I was feeling that way earlier this month while reading Open Veins of Latin America. I wanted a break from all things human. Then I remembered WHAT WE FED TO THE MANTICORE by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, which has been on my TBR for a long time.

It turns out the book’s short stories narrated from the perspectives of non-human beings (donkey, whale, vulture, etc.) were just what I needed. The living beings navigate their rapidly changing environment, often as witnesses to death and destruction caused by human force, standing by their loved ones and making meaning of their lives by fulfilling what is true to their hearts. This book broke my heart and brought me to tears.

The expansive zooming out offered in What We Fed to the Manticore helped me find the courage to pick up Open Veins of Latin America again. To feel the weight of centuries of injustice on my chest, without running away from it, but also without losing sight of human complexities and the magnificent capacities of our hearts.

#WhatWeFedToTheManticore #TaliaLakshmiKolluri by @indukisreading

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4 months ago

CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD by Assia Djebar (tr. Marjolijn de Jager) 🇩🇿

Set in May 1956, two years into the Algerian War of Independence against French rule, CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD shows us stories of young protagonists who stand at the precipice.

The book consists of nine chapters that center around nine characters (five women and four men). The characters, which include housewives, young people of diverse class backgrounds who are already part of the resistance or aspire to be, collaborators, and a young French man, all cross paths on a single day (I loved this dramatic composition). The stories that reflect the diverse makeup of this mountainside town deftly show, through the characters’ choices and actions, the many layers and contradictions that defy neat divisions of good and evil. Alongside the revolutionary fervor, readers can see, without losing our sense of justice, what might have driven some to traitorous actions and the cracks already forming or perhaps inherent in the promises of a revolution.

I found the women in the book especially fascinating. Despite the societal limitations imposed on them, the actions these women took (e.g., lying to husband, defying a taboo, etc.) were made possible by their empathy, desire, bravery, and hope, and they show how these “small” revolutions are indeed momentous as they shape their own new world.

CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD was not an easy read, though. I actually tried reading it last year and put it aside after a few pages, because I found the writing slow and hard to follow. I picked it up again after reading INSIDE THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (wr. Zohra Drif, tr. Andrew G. Ferrand), a memoir of a woman freedom fighter, with #TranslatedGemsBookClub. I am so glad I stuck with the book this time around. Despite its slow buildup and sometimes confusing, long sentences, I was left with a deeply insightful, ultimately hopeful book, with memorable characters and aesthetically admirable scenes. The afterword by Clarisse Zimra was also helpful with more information about the author, the setting, and the historical background.

Looking forward to reading more Assia Djebar and Algerian lit in general! by @indukisreading

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5 months ago

THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE by Orhan Pamuk (translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely)

Istanbul, 1975. Weeks before his engagement to a wealthy socialite, Kemal, son of one of Istanbul’s wealthiest families, falls in love with Füsun, a much younger girl from a humbler background. “It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it,” says Kemal, and begins his narration of the long, drawn-out love story with Füsun.

Though described as a love story, this chunky book didn’t exactly read like a love story to me. It is a story of Kemal’s “innocence” stemming from his privilege, of Füsun’s yearning to exercise her agency, and of the double standards and hypocrisy of a society in transition. In the background of their story are the social scenes of the Istanbul bourgeoisie in the late 1970s and the zeitgeist of these years of intense political violence in Turkey.

It’s hard to say if I’d recommend this book. I didn’t love it, mostly because I really disliked Kemal, and it was hard to follow 500+ pages of his thoughts and feelings. Still, I’m glad I finished the book, and I liked the slow-paced, meandering writing. This was the first Orhan Pamuk book I finished (I attempted and quit SNOW over a decade ago), and I am willing to read another of his books. Having said all this, I will not be watching the Netflix series based on this novel. I do not wish to see Kemal on screen.

One of the memorable scenes from the book (Lemon is Füsun’s bird):

“You’ve made a good start on this, Füsun,” I said. “Lemon is going to be your best painting yet. After all, you know your subject so well, and it’s by drawing on the subjects one knows best that one makes the most successful art.”
“But I’m not aiming for realism.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to paint his cage. Lemon will be perched in front of the window like a wild bird who has alighted there of his own free will.”

#TheMuseumOfInnocence #OrhanPamuk #MaureenFreely by @indukisreading

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5 months ago

Hello! I'm briefly resurfacing to share a couple of my recent reads:

In THE JAKARTA METHOD, Vincent Bevins presents an overview of US interventionism around the world under the slogan of anti-communism. At the heart of the book is what happened in Indonesia in the 1960s, orchestrated and aided by the US, that resulted in the killings of at least 500,000 (some estimate as many as 3 million) suspected communist sympathizers. Bevins shows how the US adopted the strategies used in Indonesia—military and intelligence assistance, anti-communist propaganda, backing of coup, and aiding the resultant mass murder—in many other countries where the newly independent, formerly-colonized people were trying to build a new future with left-leaning policies. Decades later, the result of this interventionism is the solidification of US capitalist world power, built upon the suffering of people in many parts of the world, unrecovered from historical trauma, and caught in the vicious cycle of crony capitalism. I found this book highly absorbing and informative, and I can’t recommend it enough.

THE AMERICAN WAY is an anthology of short stories from ten countries that were subjected to such US interventionism. What powerful stories! Featuring authors such as Hassan Blasim, Lina Meruane, Kim Thuy, Sema Kaygusuz (complete list in comment), every one of these stories brings to life a moment in history when US imperial force fundamentally changed the course of people’s lives in Iran, Congo, Cuba, Canada, Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Kurdistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The stories are sad and upsetting, of course, but they form connective tissues among people across time and geographical boundaries. I learned so much from them. A brief overview of the historical context follows each story, which I very much appreciated. I hope you can find a copy and read this book. Strongly recommend!

#thejakartamethod #VincentBevins #TheAmericanWay by @indukisreading

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5 months ago

TIME OF WHITE HORSES by Ibrahim Nasrallah (tr. Nancy Roberts)

“Bring a lantern, friend,
And light the darkness for me,
I’m afraid there’s a long road ahead.”

TIME OF WHITE HORSES is a historical epic set in pre-Nakba Palestine. It follows three generations of people in a rural village of Hadiya from the last few years of the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire occupying Palestine was rapidly declining, to the years leading up to the Nakba in 1948, when Palestine was under the British Mandate.

This book hugely affected me. It taught me a lot about Palestine before 1948—the history, cultural customs, ways of living, etc. I hold this book dear because it allows readers to learn about the tumultuous and devastating decades through people’s lived experiences (Nasrallah wrote the book based on oral history research).

I admit it was slow going for the first half of the book. There were many characters and POV switches that confused me, including the sudden insertion of oral testimonies. Some of the mythical touches in the early chapters of the book didn’t attract me much, either. But gradually, I got to know every character, and the village of Hadiya came alive in my mind to the point that I felt as if I were in Hadiya, witnessing all that unfolded (I finished the second half of the 652-page book in three days). There were many times I stared out the window, heartbroken, thinking about then and now.

What more can I say. It’s a big book that was very special. I recommend it.

“And always remember: if men believe that they’ll outlive an empire, they will.”

“That’s what life is like. Can you give me an ending without an ending? An ending that’s a beginning? A beginning whose ending is a beginning?”

#TimeOfWhiteHorses #IbrahimNasrallah #NancyRoberts #ReadPalestine

[ID: A hand is holding a thick book, titled Time of White Horses, against the backdrop of a sandy brown wall.] by @indukisreading

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7 months ago