What has Lawrence Hill been reading?

Lawrence Hill is esteemed the world over as the author of The Book of Negroes. Less widely known are his other excellent titles including one of my personal favourites, Any Known Blood, a semi-autobiographical account of his family's American/Canadian history. Hill has a new book coming out in January, a Young Adult novel called Beatrice and Croc Harry. I've just opened it up and I'm already delighted. Stay tuned for more on that.

In this week’s Reader's Corner, Lawrence shares something old and something new: A classic that marked a watershed in the evolution of his own Black identity, and a brand new novel by a Black Canadian woman that is taking the world "by storm."

Something old…

I awoke one day, at age fourteen, and began to contemplate my own Black and mixed race identity. Suddenly, I noticed the dozens of books that my parents kept shelved around the house. I began to devour them. They spoke to me, in ways that my membership in otherwise almost entirely all white schools, debating clubs, hockey teams and track clubs did not, about who I was, who my ancestors were, where I came from, where I was going, the ways that I could express myself, and the kind of life I wanted to lead. So I picked up The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written by Alex Haley, and devoured it. As a middle class suburban Toronto boy, it troubled and mesmerized me to encounter such vitality, anger and hatred on the page. I mean, come on! In his early years with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X argued that white people were devils. My mother was white, and I loved her dearly, so I knew better. It was also reassuring to see Malcolm X evolve into a more accepting notion of how people of different backgrounds could work together to oppose racism and to fight for equal opportunities for Black people. It was devastating to learn of his assassination. The Autobiography of Malcolm X marked me profoundly at age 14, and has stayed with me for 50 years.

…and something new

A novel that recently blew me away is What Storm, What Thunder (HarperCollins Canada, 2021) by the Haitian-Canadian-American writer Myriam Chancy. A dozen characters each take a turn at the mike to narrate the texture of their lives before, during and after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.