GESPREK met Teana Boston-Mammah: Learning to be me

Socioloog Teana Boston-Mammah presenteert haar persoonlijke boekselectie. Deze publicaties zullen worden opgenomen in de boekwinkelinventaris van Zonder titel. Haar selectie omvat boeken over identiteit, het vinden van jezelf en hoe jezelf te blijven in het krachtenveld van de maatschappij. Met deze selectie wijst Boston-Mammah op de grote invloed die boeken kunnen hebben op iemands persoonlijke perceptie en inlevingsvermogen.

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.

De boekselectie van Boston-Mammah is in te zien en te koop bij Zonder titel.