Literature

The comedy and complexity of campus life: Sonora Jha's 'The Laughter'

The plot of "The Laughter" twists and turns around issues of Islamophobia, sexism, and the changing culture of campus life. Author Sonora Jha, a Seattle University professor, discusses her newest novel and why she chose to make her main character so unlikeable.

Celebrate Black literature and history all year long at Seattle Public Library's Douglass-Truth Branch

Seattle is home to what some may consider a hidden treasure at the Douglass-Truth Branch of the Seattle Public Library: one of the largest collections of African-American literature and history on the West Coast.

'Waiting to dance again.' How Seattle's literary community weathered the pandemic

The role of Seattle’s civic poet is to be an ambassador for the literary arts, fostering dialogue between communities, and connecting people with art. For the last three years, that role has also been to memorialize various unprecedented challenges we’ve collectively faced.

World

This 19th-century short story might help combat racism against refugees today

India's Rabindranath Tagore was the first nonwhite writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature. His 1892 story, "The Kabuliwala," fostered empathy for migrants and refugees. It still resonates today.

Anna Qu’s fierce memoir grapples with child labor, immigration, and love

As a teen, Chinese American author Anna Qu was forced by her mother to work in their family's garment factory in Queens, New York. At home she was the family’s maid, and faced punishment for doing things like schoolwork. Qu contacted Child Protective Services to report her mother, but due to bureaucratic bumbling she was left her to fend for herself. Now as an adult, Qu reckons with life, family, and not so easy answers to past trauma in her memoir.

Fantasy books are my escape, but I wish the genre was more inclusive

Adar Abdi is a White Center teenager with a passion for fantasy. She gravitated to fantasy novels as an escape from reality, into worlds without racism or sexism. But as she continued to read, she found more messages — subtle and overt — that brought the same issues she tried to avoid to the forefront. This piece is an imagined confrontation between Adar and a fantasy writer.

A democracy worth saving: Author Ben Rhodes on the rise of global nationalism

In his new book After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made, author Ben Rhodes grapples with the dissolving notion of American exceptionalism in a post-Covid world. Using a global lens, Rhodes presents a glimpse of a highly possible democracy-free future, presently modeled by countries like Hungary, Russia, and China.

'The ingredients for madness': Author Grace M. Cho’s memoir on colonialism, food, and love

Author Grace M. Cho breaks bread with the numerous voices haunting her ‘pained spirit’ in her new novel.