TALK with Teana Boston-Mammah: Learning to be me

Join sociologist Teana Boston-Mammah as she presents a selection of publications, which will be part of the bookshop inventory of Untitled. Her selection brings together a reading list combining identity, finding yourself and remaining oneself in the incongruity of power structures within society. With this selection, Boston-Mammah points out the huge influence that books can have on a person’s personal perception and empathy.

Conscious of continuously being perceived as something other than I am, not having the words to express the cause of my frustration, not able to understand the protagonist of my anger, I was left no option -in my own coming of age mind - but to rage against the incongruity of power structures in which I always seemed to be left on the wrong end of the sliding scale. At war in peace time, left me a lonely warrior, until aged 16 my sociology teacher handed me the book, If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, this simple, unexpected and unforeseen gesture of kindness changed my life. Books and their writers are my sisters, my mothers, my fathers, my brothers offering a way into imagined communities, where the complex layers of self articulate themselves into being, offering themselves up as signposts for the directionless, sustaining me till today.

Boston-Mammah’s book selection will be available for browsing and purchase in Untitled.