This was a wonderful read. I wish there were more books that were like this. Everything was just great about it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

What an incredibly brilliant collection of short stories and essays. This should really be required reading in school. Each entry tells an important, powerful
Story.

Huge thank you #randomhouse and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

While this may be targeting writers more, I feel that it’s an eye opening collection for readers and reviewers as well. It’s refreshing to see the letters written by writers from multiple countries bringing fresh new perspectives to the white dominated American publishing landscape. I feel like I didn’t do Justice to this collection the first time I read it, and would love to take my time rereading the essays and highlighting the many wonderful parts of it.
Definitely a must read from me.

I was totally onboard with this book, and in many parts I still am, but the call for forgiveness to someone like Rachel Dolezal? Never.

This quote from a reviewer on goodreads sums it up excellently:
"the author sympathizes with white cisgender people who were unmasked as masquerading as someone they are not, like Rachel Dolezal. The sympathy and empathy offered to these actors argues that there is "truth in fiction" and that perhaps we can set aside some personal issues and understand that what they were doing was no different than other authors imagining the lives of others. I still have to sit with this ask, because of now, I cannot overlook the harm, privilege, and audacity these actors enjoyed;"

That piece aside, it is a rather insightful and useful work.

This book is a collection of essays by various writers that discuss the intersections of race/ethnicity and literature. There are 17 essays that discuss topics including structure, translation, crime fiction, and queerness. These essays are largely personal, often reading as a combination of memoir and an analysis of a literary topic, which I found interesting. This approach allowed the essays to be quite personal, which brought the topics to life, as well as provided insights into many different communities. Each essay also ends with a suggested reading list on other essays/books relevant to the topic, which was quite helpful.

I enjoyed that this was the type of book where it’s most beneficial to read one essay then let it sit, rather than simply charging through the book as I usually do. It’s not a quick read but it is an insightful one, not only for writers but also for readers (maybe especially for readers). I’ll honestly probably reread several of the essays in the future and sort through the many, many highlights I made during my initial reading of this.

This read was extremely impactful and should honestly become a part of the curriculum for high school and college literature courses. Reading these essays highlighted things I have never considered and will positively affect how I approach reading from now on. This is a highly recommendable collection of essays for those who are interested in learning more about the endemic racism in publishing/writing that often gets overlooked or shrugged off. It also emphasizes how much work is still needed in the publishing industry and encourages readers to think critically and read diversely.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Book Summary:

Letters to a Writer of Color is a collection of essays exploring literature, and its impact on sharing experiences. As such, it delves into the lives and stories of real people, covering cultural traditions and other elements that impacted these authors' works.

My Review:

If there is a book that needs to exist today, it's Letters to a Writer of Color. There are a lot of reasons to love this collection of essays. The first reason is (I hope) pretty obvious. More than that, I adore that it discussed the need for more inclusive publishing and reading practices.

Yeah, you read that right! We can all be better about reading more inclusively (myself included – I'm working on it, but as I said, we can all do better). These essays help explain that it isn't just what we read but how we read. I loved that point.

If you have the time, please go and read Letters to a Writer of Color. It'll open your eyes and help share new perspectives.

Highlights:
Nonfiction
Essays

This is a much-needed set of essays about writing and being a writer of color. Compassionate, wise, and insightful, these letter-essays are about breaking all the usual assumptions and boundaries. It is the kind of book I want to give as a gift to every writer of color I know. It is the kind of book I wish I'd had when I started out as a writer myself.

something i’m struck with after reading this collection is the intricate way whiteness seeps into the lives of people of color. it’s not just that whiteness controls and manipulates the publishing of novels written by people of color, although that’s atrocious enough, the way whiteness dampens art to make it “palatable.” but how that process, the process of denial and of the attempt to change the art, seeps in and settles into the well being of writers. it’s detrimental in many ways, whiteness is so destructive

these essays are beautiful and thought provoking and determined and all the more inspiring if you are a writer

Letters To A Writer Of Color is a collection of very important and informative essays about being a writer or color. Each essay was so sharp and well written. I think it’s so important to read things like this from different perspectives. Overall, I really enjoyed the essays and I loved how each author included further reading material at the end of their essay!

This is a lovely collection of essays by writers of color that provide a distinct perspective on writing, storytelling, and diversity in the literary world. I love the way each piece provides a unique perspective from each writer and gives a little insight into their journey.

A few of my favourite pieces were:
On Crime Fiction - Femi Kayode where he discusses liberating 'African writing' and On the Second Person by Kiese Laymon where he discusses the racial politics of writing.

Each essay offers something different yet they all go together so seamlessly. One of the things I loved most about this collection is that each author provides their own list of reading suggestions, encouraging readers to dig a little deeper.

In a Nutshell: This should be called ‘Letters from a writer of colour.’ Has many thought-provoking points for writers and readers of all colours, including white. A relevant read in today’s world. Ought to be present in every library and added to literary courses.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that the world of fiction is extremely white-dominated. As the book also tells us, “the publishing industry is mostly white, straight, and abled.” But times are a-changing, finally.

In the last few years, there has been a riot of colour and a rainbow of gender in the fictional world. Today, we get to see books by writers of various ethnic, national and gender backgrounds. We live in times where the "whiteness" of English language fiction has slowly started turning multi-hued. However, does this point to a change in dominant voice? Are things now smooth for poc writers? You already know the answer to that.

This book is a compilation of seventeen essays by published poc writers from various countries – Phillipines, Cambodia, India, Nigeria, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Virgin Islands, … even the USA. A couple are by writers who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. This is diversity in the truest sense of the word, and it brings to the book an honesty and an authenticity you rarely get to see.

(It warmed my heart to see the editors’ backgrounds. The collection is edited by two writers – one Indian and one Pakistani, and if you know the historical background of these countries, you will realise how magical and unusual that combination is.)

I'm not a writer and have no plans of becoming one, ever. But as a reader of colour, I'm aware of how underrepresented and incorrectly represented we are in contemporary fiction, and not only by white writers. Moreover, many readers from "developed" countries jump to generalised conclusions based on the limited poc fiction they read. Further, they want poc fiction to cater to THEIR assumptions about the country. For instance, if it is an Indian book, they want only an exotic picture of the nation, with elephants and snakes and peacocks, whether true or not.

If you think that these are problems of the past, you are wrong. An Indian-origin acquaintance of mine, whose Mumbai-based crime-thriller was recently released in the USA, was forced to change the spellings of Indian words in her work to make it ‘accessible’ to US readers. Some of the reviews of her book are scathing, with the reasons for the one star rating being as asinine as “Too many long Indian names.” Even an established author such as Murakami has had his novels altered during translation to make them more suitable to US audiences. (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/haruki-murakami-translators-david-karashima-review/616210/) Books like ‘I am Pilgrim’ are lauded and frequently part of best lists, regardless of how they are stereotypical about against any character not from a Caucasian background. White supremacy is so endemic even in contemporary publishing that we don’t even recognise such behavioural patterns as being fundamentally flawed.

So you see why such a book is needed?

I rarely share quotes from ARCs, not just because we aren't supposed to share quotes from such copies without publishers' approvals, but also because I'm too lazy to type them out. But I'm making an exception for once, and I hope the publishers won't mind, because this sentence in the editor's note is the essence of the book, the reason why it exists and needs to be read.

"Readers and reviewers often shelved our fiction under such curious categories as 'cultural interest' or 'Asia', as if we were not novelists but ethnographers or anthropologists. We were asked more questions about the state of our nations than our writing. A single character's experience was often conflated with the experiences of an entire nationality or community."

The title indicates that these are letters written to writers of colours. However, as the editorial note also points out, the content will suit discerning readers as well, especially those who want to explore fiction beyond their own country and skin colour. The essays cover a range of topics, covering character development, translation, conforming to the Western ideal of writing standard, ideal writing conditions, drawing the line between fictional and personal, and a lot more. Some essays are better suited to writers as they focus more on the writing process than on the experience of being a poc writer. But the book is not a ‘how to’ manual for writers; rather, a sharing of knowledge gained from personal experiences. Hence it should have been titled ‘Letters by a Writer of Color’, which would have further opened up its target readership.

My favourite essays were mostly ones that spoke better to me the reader. Thus, ‘On Origin Stories’ by Taymour Soomro (Pakistan, Queer), ‘On Humor’ by Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh), ‘On Telling and Showing’ by Jamil Jan Kochai (Afghanistan), ‘On the Inactive Protagonist’ by Vida Cruz-Borja (Philippines), ‘On Art and Activism’ by Myriam Gurba (Mexico), ‘On the Second Person’ by Kiese Laymon (USA), and ‘On Political Fiction and Fictional Politics’ by Mohammed Hanif (Pakistan) were my top favourites, with 4.5 stars or more.

The content reads at a slow pace in most instances, but has enough of thought-provoking learnings to merit a patient reading. Each essay ends with a list of ‘Reading Suggestions’ by the contributing author. This was easily my favourite part of the book, and it is going to do a lot of damage to my reading list for sure.

The only main change I would have made to this collection would have been to include the writer bios at the end of their essay than at the end of the book. Oh, and maybe I would have modified the colours on the cover as well. Such dull shades to denote writings by persons of colour? All non-white cultures are "colourful" [pun intended], so I'd have loved for the cover to appear as vivid in tone.

With the world already turning global than national, the way ahead is for writers and readers also to be more catholic in their acceptance of cultural writing. This book will hopefully help readers to see beyond white and glimpse the glory of colour in fiction that springs from an OwnVoices soul.

3.9 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each of the essays.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the DRC of “Letters to a Writer of Color”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Letters to a Writer of Color presents a collection of essays from writers of color which delve into their individual experiences as writers and offer guidance, advice, and perspective for other writers.

Though this collection of essays is primarily by and for writers of color, this collection also serves to create and deepen a broader, more nuanced conversation about diversity in the literary world. The memoiric approach to each of these essays provides the reader with unique insight into each writer's perspective and experiences, and allows a level of openness and vulnerability that enables readers to genuinely connect with the material and really think about the experience of reading, and the importance of reading critically.

I don't really know what else to say about this book except that so much of it feels vital to the myriad conversations the book community cycles through online, particularly our treatment of books as marketable consumer products and the increasing tendency the online book community has to insist that reading for escapism automatically exempts one from critically engaging with texts.

This is a fantastic collection of essays about writing, but you definitely don’t need to be a writer to appreciate this book. Each writer focuses on a specific aspect of writing, for example, Amitaba Kumar’s essay is on why authenticity isn’t a license we carry in our wallets, Kiese Laymon, focuses his essay on hearing that no one wants to read the story that you want to write. Each essay merits a larger discussion as well as offers insight into each particular writer’s style and voice and it’s a great way to get to know a swath of writers so that you can then seek out their backlist books. These pieces also work together to challenge what we lit majors have been taught should be included in the Canon with a capitol C of literature. With writers of color vastly underrepresented in publishing, there’s an urgency to these essays, but also a celebration of all they have to offer.

This collection is written by various writers of color, using empathy and wisdom to point out the conventions used in fiction. Why are novels written the way that they are, and using the structures that have become so familiar? They talk about using their backgrounds to lend authenticity to writing, censorship, the creation of art, humor, and giving themselves permission to be themselves and not a watered-down version for public consumption. Different cultures, genders, and sexualities are represented, giving us an array of opinions to look at our assumptions regarding what we read and how we evaluate it.

We open with an essay questioning truth in fiction, and the con that some people play regarding identity. Though other essays tackle different aspects of literature, it's still a topic thread running throughout. What determines an individual's true self, and how much of that belongs on the page? It's a question that always comes up, because the adage "write what you know" is there. Those from marginalized identities struggle with that question more, never feeling like their reality truly holds value. This can also be applied to story structure, as the three (or four or five) act structure tends to rule Western fiction. Other cultures have different traditions and focus in story, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Each of these writers puts forth a piece of their own history, and how that affected their writing and techniques. The phrases used, the choice of story to tell, the details to make it feel "authentic," all stem from the background each author has. The country or culture of origin, educational background, literary history and manner of getting published all play a role.

This collection of essays poses questions with no easy answers. It feels like a Fine Arts or literature course, which is rather the point. Each essay has suggested reading at the end, as well as examples within the text. The authors brought their own histories to the questions, showing us how to answer them. Vida Cruz-Borja talks about this frequently, and I liked seeing practical applications in essays, especially those by Femi Kayode and Xiaolu Guo. Bring the details that are important to characters. Show the village their ancestors grew up in. Make them fully realized people, not stereotypes or cardboard cutouts. Honor trauma, don't exploit it simply for shock value. Give characters of color the same careful attention in the world-building stages that white ones get, without fear of rejection or misunderstanding. These stories will get published and read, and the reader will see them as authentic.

I picked up Letters to a Write of Color because I saw it was partly edited by Deepa Anappara and she wrote one of my favorite books I read last year.

I am not the intended audience for this book as I am not a writer, however as an avid reader and reviewer it helped me expand past some assumptions I had. I highly recommend it for any writer, reader or reviewer.

Letters to a Writer of Color is a set of essays written by different POC authors. The essays span from tackling the ways in which conventional writing structures in English and the west limit storytelling methods, to talking about Humor, Translation, and Trauma.

Will be adding this to library collection. Excellent option to diversify writing collection, which often doesn't include books created for writers of color.

This one was a fairly short series of essays, but they are pretty specifically aimed at writers. This is a book about writing. But, even as a reader, I found some of it interesting.
For example, there were discussions on whether or not a writer from a non-western country can do comedy, or thrillers... or whether or not they are always expected to "represent" their country of origin, and tell the tales of it that Westerners expect (poverty, struggle). There is a lot of talk about Westernized writing classes, and how some of these authors disagree with the things they learned in those.
I enjoyed hearing from voices I was previously unfamiliar with, and intend to delve into some of their other (fictional) writings. The authors are from many walks of life, and some still live in their home countries. Others have emigrated to the US or UK, and are grappling with just writing about where they live now. They are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and other countries. I believe the only US-born writer in here is Kiese Laymon.
If you are not a writer yourself, or not really wanting to hear a lot about "the process" of writing, this one might not be for you. But, if you have some interest in the topic, this is a great way to hear many different perspectives on it.

This is such an interesting collection of essays. Each essay makes for a great entry point into a deeper discussion about perspective outside the white perspective. I loved Madeleine Thein's essay "On Structure", from the Borges quote to her use of number and the word "fixity", I was sucked in and intrigued and thrilled to discover an author I want to learn more about. At the end of each essay is a list of suggested reading making this collection an infinitely expanding experience.

Letters to a Writer of Color, edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomroo, collects a series of essays by writers of color, written from their native countries or their adopted countries as part of the diaspora. Every essay has its own focus—such topics as humor, violence, translation, and queerness. Among my favorites are Femi Kayode’s “On Crime Fiction,” Mohammed Hanif’s “On Political Fiction and Fictional Politics,” and Deepa Anappara’s “On the Ideal Conditions for Writing.”

Deciding in middle age to write crime fiction, Nigerian-born Femi Kayode begins by rereading crime fiction he loved long ago, realizing the dearth of Nigerian crime fiction, and deciding to take Toni Morrison’s advice: “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Kayode discusses the widespread belief that crime fiction exists to entertain yet argues that Nigerian or other non-mainstream crime fiction demands cultural background that threatens to detract from plot. Using his experience writing his debut Lightseekers, he explains, in part, how he took inspiration from a real-life multiple lynching in Nigeria, researched the event and related ideas, and shaped it into fiction that presents the humanity of the world and his country.

In “On Political Fiction and Fictional Politics,” Karachi journalist Mohammed Hanif narrates his experiences writing and publishing A Case of Exploding Mangos, a fictional account loosely based on the plane crash killing General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and prompting extensive debate about whether it was an accident or assassination. Drawing on the resultant conspiracy theories and adding his own made up “facts” and theories, Hanif explains his interesting decision to write the book in English rather than Urdu, which could be more widely read by Pakistanis. He goes on to discuss the much later Urdu translation leading to Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s son’s defamation lawsuit against Hanif.

Deepa Anappara’s “On the Ideal Conditions for Writing” is a masterpiece of irony. She begins: “My sister is dying of cancer, and I am writing a novel.” Anappara sits in her sister’s hospital room working on an unnamed novel I recognize as one I read three years ago, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, and centered on an optimistic young boy searching for his missing friends although ever at risk of disappearing from the slums, himself. Anappara describes her childhood hardships, her determination to write despite warnings that writers are condemned to poverty, and her struggles with illness and unemployment after moving from India to England. She recounts her decision to study creative writing in graduate school and the pressure to adopt Western ways of writing to fit in while also realizing, “To write like my peers in a Western classroom I have to erase myself, but if I erase myself I have no story.” Despite a chaotic and tragic life, she writes, feeling guilt but writing on, rejecting writing advice that contradicts life as she knows it, accepting that she will never have the ideal conditions to write.

Whatever the specific focus, each author in this collection speaks from the heart, sharing experiences and thoughts to enlighten and encourage less experienced writers of color and providing reading lists to supplement their essays.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance reader copy of this outstanding collection.

I am not the intended audience for this book. I am neither a person of color nor a writer. However, I am an avid reader and I actively seek out works by authors whose backgrounds and experiences are vastly different than my own, and it is for this reason that I found "Letters to a Writer of Color" to be interesting and relevant to me.

I learned a lot from reading this book and it forced me to confront some of my own shortcomings as a reader- my own microaggressions and unrealistic expectations. I don't expect white characters written by white authors to be representative of the entire white race, why was I viewing characters of color as representative of their entire community, country, or race?

The prevalence of white supremacy in the publishing industry was also eye opening to me. It is ridiculous that publishers expect authors of color to write in such a way that makes their works more palatable and comfortable to white readers. It is absurd that we want our fiction to be apolitical and noncritical. I am of the belief that all fiction should be inherently political, because life is inherently political. White readers as a whole, and I am counted among them, need to recognize the harm we are causing when we insist that an author's writing conforms to our ideas of acceptability, instead of allowing our minds to expand to accept the idea that a book isn't bad or that writing isn't poor because it doesn't conform to Western traditions or closely held stereotypes.

When publishers confine writers of color to "immigrant stories" where everything is resolved when the character learns to conform to white society, tales of the trauma of living in an underdeveloped country that conform to stereotypes white readers have of these places, or expect characters to represent an entire complex community when that, of course, is impossible, they not only place limits on the writer's talent and expression, they also deprive their customer base, the readers, of potentially great literature.

This book is an excellent resource for its intended audience, but also for anyone who wants an honest insight into the publishing world and the expectations and limits it places on authors of color. Thank you NetGalley for the privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.