Hector Tobar on Inaugural Poetry and Prose

Were you inspired by Monday's inaugural ceremony? One of our favorite authors, Hector Tobar (The Barbarian Nurseries) took a look at the craft of speechwriting prior to the event,

An important speech usually begins as a writing project. And what separates a good inauguration speech from a great speech is, more often than not, a lot of writer's elbow grease. Speechwriting, to paraphrase your old English teacher, is speech rewriting.

And then he debriefed yesterday with Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin on the poetry and prose of the day, including Richard Blanco's poem "One Today". Watch: Inauguration 2013: How was Obama's speech?

               - all of us -
facing the stars
hope - a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it - together.

Are you ready for a little collective mapping? Here's a look at what Amnesty International would like to see on President Obama's second term agenda. And here's an action you can take today.

2012 Year in Review: 12 Great Human Rights Reads

Rights Readers had a terrific reading/discussion year in 2012, I think one of our best.  Here are the books we read and enjoyed together:

In January we read Andrew X. Pham's
The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars, the 'prequel' to the author's wonderful memoir Catfish and Mandala, which we read a few years ago. Eaves tells the story of Pham's father, from the French occupation through WWII and the Vietnam War, in powerful, elegant prose.

We read Susan Choi's novel of paranoia in the age of terrorism, A Person of Interest, in February. I enjoyed her description of academic life in a Midwestern college town, and although her tendency to overwrite slows the book down, I was very invested in the characters by the end and the story had enough 'thriller' in it to propel me forward, eager to get to the satisfying conclusion.


In March, we read A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya. The real pay-off for reading about this brave pioneer for women's rights in Afghanistan was learning that she was the namesake and personal hero for the young Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai who was nearly killed this fall for advocating for education for girls like herself. We look forward to reading Malala's books some day.

We read Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife in April. This impressive debut novel set in the aftermath of the Balkan conflict combines history and folktale in a narrative quest for recovery and healing. I'll be interested to see what this young author does next.

In May, we set sail with National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis' The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World to explore human diversity in remote corners of the globe. Drawing inspiration from such endangered cultures as the seafaring navigators of Polynesia renewed our commitment to language diversity and cultural preservation.

We read Ursula Hegi's novel set on the cusp of World War II, Children and Fire, in June. This was the first time I read Hegi and it won't be the last. Many of the issues the characters in this novel grapple with--propaganda, reproductive health, the roles of teachers and parents as moral guides-- were especially resonant in this election year.


In July we read Avi Steinberg's memoir about working in a prison library, Running the Books.  We loved the author's humorous insights into prison culture and wise reflections on the value of reading and writing. I managed to spread the love for this book to a second book group. Don't be afraid to suggest it to yours!


As usual, in August we took a break from more serious human rights fare and read The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. If you enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe, you should give Indian detective Vish Puri a try.


The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness by Jordan Goodman, our September selection is a hard book to recommend. The subject, British diplomat Roger Casement's efforts to expose abuses in the South American rubber industry, is fascinating (as is Casement's entire life), but the delivery here is just too dull for the casual reader. If you've read Mario Vargas Llhosa's The Dream of the Celt (which I still want to get to), or you're writing a term paper on the history of corporate accountabilty this would be a good book to consult. Otherwise, I'd hold out for a biopic.

I haven't done a formal poll to find out what our favorite book was this year, but I'd put money on Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries winning any popularity contest. And that's not just because the author kindly graced us with his presence at our discussion! This book hit all the marks for us with themes like race, class, immigration, parenting and the politics of urban landscaping in a highly readable package. And yes of course, we love a good L.A. story!

In November, we read Anna Funder's Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. This very personal look at the lives of ordinary East Germans shocked us with how little we knew about the aftermath of reunification and the impunity granted to the secret police. Highly recommended.

Finally, this December, we have read Scenes from Village Life by Israeli novelist Amos Oz. This novel-in-stories spins unsettling tales about what's happening below the surface of a small Israeli town-- a great way to move past the familiar headlines from the Middle East and engage in a new way.

Keep an eye on the blog for news of our great 2013 picks. From what I have read of our up-coming books so far, we will have another great year.

Pick a Book for the President-elect to Read

While we are waiting around for the results of the election to come in here's a question to ponder: what book would you assign the President-elect to read? I was reading a recent LA Times article by Rights Readers favorite, Hector Tobar, in which he opines on the presidential candidates book picks,

[Romney choice] "Thunderbolt Kid" is a fun book you can read in a day, whereas the Iowa book on Obama's list — Robinson's "Gilead" — is a brooding work of serious literature that won the Pulitzer Prize. That pretty much sums up the difference in the men and their taste in books: In Obama's favorites the characters suffer, they philosophize, they struggle with and reflect on injustice, and they sermonize — the Bible is another book on Obama's list of putative favorites. 

In Romney's favorites young people go out into the sunshine and glide down rivers ("Adventures of Huckleberry Finn") and battle alien species ("Battlefield Earth" and "Ender's Game"). Apparently, Romney is like a lot of people: He reads for pure escapism. Good and evil are pretty clearly defined in most of the books he likes. Life is simpler.

That got me to thinking, what Rights Readers books would I assign to each candidate? Because immigration reform is said to be a priority for both candidates, I think Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries, which we just finished, would be a great way to explore the changing cultural landscape that immigration brings to our nation.  For Mr. Romney's struggle to understand the 47%, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed is the obvious prescription. I might also suggest that he travel through Iran with Jason Elliot (Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran) before setting a foreign policy course. And perhaps a novel with a strong feminine voice like Louise Erdrich's Tracks or Toni Morrison's A Mercy would give him some new perspective. For Mr. Obama I'm thinking of Junot Diaz' advice to the President to tell the story of where we've been and where we're going. He needs a good yarn. Maybe Ella Minnow Pea, the free speech fable? That's as close as I can get to tweaking his executive overreach. Or perhaps he could join us in reading Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads this February as an aide to a relationship with China that isn't solely focused on trade wars. Or for a nonfiction pick, maybe we could help him 'evolve' his position on the federal death penalty with Jarvis Jay Masters' memoir That Bird Has My Wings. What human rights-themed books would you recommend?

In addition to our list of human rights-themed books, of note in the listmania department: Obama's reading list according to The Daily Beast and a list of reading recommendations to the president in 2009 from Washington Monthly.

Hector Tobar Visits Rights Readers!

Book discussions don't get better than this! Congratulations to our Loyal Readers (especially mastermind Stevi) for luring author Hector Tobar to our discussion The Barbarian Nurseries. The novel is both layered with complex characters and at the same time covers quite a bit of Southern California terrain, exploring issues of family, race, class, immigration, culture, media, justice and more (see this post for more). Stevi shares,

Not only did we learn that the
Torres-Thompson children are based on Hector’s own sons and daughter, but that the gritty, very real people and descriptions come from Hector’s experiences as a reporter for the LA Times. He is a writer who enjoys his characters, their experiences and the settings in which they find themselves.

Currently, Hector’s working on two more books, one a historical novel about the trapped Chilean miners and another about a man who wanted to write a novel so he lived the life of a novel but was never able to write the novel. Both books sound like they are right down our Amnesty alley.

Yes, I feel certain this is not the last time we will be reading this author's books, and meanwhile, we strongly recommend this great novel which is both thought-provoking and fun to read! The novel has already won the California Book Award for fiction this year and congratulations to Hector who just became the most recent recipient of UC Santa Barbara's Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. Well-deserved!

MacArthur Awards and the Immigrant Experience

Last week a couple of our favorite authors, Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) and Dinaw Mengestu (The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears), won prestigious MacArthur fellowships. As it happens, we are reading Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries, an immigrant odyssey through contemporary Los Angeles this month and in that context I found it very interesting to hear Diaz and Mengestu discuss the influence of immigrant communities (Dominican and Ethiopian respectively) on their work in these MacArthur introductory videos:



The Diaz video can be found here. As I mentioned in another post, Diaz has a new book out, (This Is How You Lose Her) already nominated for a National Book Award and it seems Mengestu's third novel will be out soon. Interestingly, Carolyn Kellogg and Hector Tobar chat about the significance of the MacArthur Fellowships for the Los Angeles Times in the video below. In addition to praising the work of Diaz and Mengestu (with additional nods to Rights Readers favorites Edwidge Danticat and Toni Morrison), Tobar talks about the life of the writer and the impact of such awards.

 

Authors Speak Out on Immigration

I thought I'd share this clip from Junot Diaz, (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) currently on a book tour for his latest novel, This Is How You Lose Her. He was asked about the politics of immigration and the DREAM Act, which provides an opportunity to gain legal status for undocumented students who entered the country before the age of 15, have been physically present in the United States for at least five years, graduate from high school, and/or complete at least two years of college or military service. Take action for the DREAM Act here.


As I am sure many of my Loyal Readers know, President Obama implemented the so-called mini-DREAM Act, allowing temporary relief to undocumented young people.  Edwidge Danticat writes,

There is a powerful photograph of a group of undocumented young people—DREAMers—lying in the sand in Miami, their joined bodies spelling out the words “DREAM ACT NOW”, as if hoping to be seen from the heavens.

“DREAMers” are just what they sound like: bright, hopeful, and optimistic young people. They came here as children and have spent most of their lives in the United States. Yet they have remained in legal limbo, with the specter of deportation hanging over their heads. ...

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration granted relief from deportation to between 800,000 and 1.7 million DREAMers and made it possible for them to try to find work and/or get an education. This new policy can be reversed at any time—especially by an administration that is hostile to immigration—and can leave DREAMers back in limbo, back in the sand.

Danticat wrote powerfully about the failures of our migrant and refugee policy in Brother, I'm Dying. Still on the case, check out her more recent New York Times editorial on immigrant detention here.

Finally, this month we are reading Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries, a novel layered with rich portraits of the immigrant experience in America. Tobar has also written a nonfiction book, Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States, so it's not surprising that he has insight to offer on the plight of young immigrants in the video below.

To learn more about how immigrants' rights are human rights and how you can get involved in supporting the DREAM Act and opposing abuses of immigrants in detention visit Amnesty International's campaign page.

Our October Author: Hector Tobar

This month we are reading The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar. We are long time fans of Mr. Tobar, his first book The Tattooed Soldier being one of the very first novels we read together and we have all been looking forward to another opportunity to experience the author's street-level view of Los Angeles and Orange County. It's especially exciting to be reading this book which explores culture, class, immigration, crime, media and half a dozen other front page issues right on the brink of a major election. Here are a few links to supplement our discussion...

Most of us are also already familiar with Mr. Tobar's reporting and opinion in the Los Angeles Times. The author has a personal web page, where I found the most interesting link to be this page of links to the journalism he is most proud of. Pepperdine has a podcast interview (scroll down to Episode 20) with the writer that predates Barbarian, but I think is an excellent place to get some good biographical insight.

For an in depth look at the book, you can't go wrong with the Tobar's appearance in the Los Angeles Public Library's ALOUD series. KCRW's Bookworm has a shorter interview and of course, there's our friend Sonali Kolhatkar's video interview above.

As a bonus, check out these recommendations from Mr. Tobar: Favorite L.A. novels, and a playlist to accompany your Barbarian journey.

Last but not least, it appears that the film rights to the book have been sold and a writer is working on the screen adaptation. Let the casting speculation begin in comments!

Honest Conversation-- and Action-- on Immigration

In my last post, I announced our pick for October, Hector Tobar's The Barbarian Nurseries. Normally, I wouldn't start blogging about the author until closer to our 'due date,' but I thought I had to share this timely interview with the author. Tobar, in addition to his two novels that have caught our attention, has written a nonfiction book on immigration (Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States) and writes a column for the Los Angeles Times. After President Obama's announcement regarding relaxing enforcement of immigration rules for undocumented young people, the so-called mini-DREAM, the Times wanted to get his reaction (see above). Plus he has produced a column about the effects of the executive order for one young woman,

A shadow has been lifted — not from the life of Ana Venegas, but from American discourse. Like thousands of others, Ana is here, she's American, and she always has been. Now, perhaps, an honest conversation about immigration can begin.

(The video also gives you a little preview of what to expect from The Barbarian Nurseries.)

Keep the honest conversation going. Join Amnesty International in calling for passage of the full Dream Act here. 

For October: The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar

We have selected The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar for October. We really enjoyed Tobar's previous take on Los Angeles in The Tattooed Soldier and are looking forward to this New York Times Notable Book,

With The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of Hollywood and deeper than camera-ready crime stories to reveal Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions.

Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household—one of three Mexican employees in a Spanish-style house with lovely views of the Pacific. She has been responsible strictly for the cooking and cleaning, but the recession has hit, and suddenly Araceli is the last Mexican standing—unless you count Scott Torres, though you’d never suspect he was half Mexican but for his last name and an old family photo with central L.A. in the background. The financial pressure is causing the kind of fights that even Araceli knows the children shouldn’t hear, and then one morning, after a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty house—except for the two Torres-Thompson boys, little aliens she’s never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, and the only family member she knows of is Señor Torres, the subject of that old family photo. So she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew . . .

With a precise eye for the telling detail and an unerring way with character, soaring brilliantly and seamlessly among a panorama of viewpoints, Tobar calls on all of his experience—as a novelist, a father, a journalist, a son of Guatemalan immigrants, and a native Angeleno—to deliver a novel as broad, as essential, as alive as the city itself.

Rights Readers Round-up

Rights Readers authors have been busy this summer:

Iran continues to be a major topic of commentary: check out Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) in the NYT: I Must Go Home to Iran Again. Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) calls for freeing filmmaker Maziar Bahari (more from AIUSA and action) Message to Tehran: Let our truth-teller go. Stephen Kinzer (Crescent and Star) is optimistic Iran and U.S. 'not fated to be enemies forever' and offers some advice to Obama on a shared birthday.

On the home front, Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) has three NYT editorials with audio supplement on the how the recession has hit the "already poor," here, here and here, while Hector Tobar (The Tattooed Soldier) has another insightful column on immigration. Walter Mosley (Little Scarlet) offers 10 Things You Need to Know to Live on the Streets, and has an opinion piece in Newseek: America's Obsession with Crime which he also discusses on NPR.

Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains) pays tribute to a local hero he met while writing his latest book (Strength in What Remains) in the NYT: A Death in Burundi. Edwidge Danticat (Brother, I'm Dying) writes an appreciation of Nobelist Wole Soyinka for the Progressive.

Mark Hertsgaard (Earth Odyssey) reports from Burkina Faso on climate change and appears on a FORA.tv panel on food security and climate change. Hertsgaard is preparing a book on the subject, certainly a good candidate for a Rights Read. Kevin Bales (Disposable People) is interviewed about his latest book, The Slave Next Door.

As follow up to our discussion of Caroline Elkins, (Imperial Reckoning), check out the Times (London) coverage of efforts by Mau Mau veterans to investigate torture claims, here and here with analysis here and here. Speaking of Kenya, Michela Wrong (I Didn't Do It for You) can be found promoting her new book, It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower at openDemocracy (see also interviews with NPR and NYT.) Her pr strategy has some interesting twists.

Muhammad Yunus (Banker To The Poor) was one of the luminaries who received a presidential medal of freedom. Paul Farmer (Mountains Beyond Mountains) will not be heading USAID, but Samantha Power (A Problem from Hell) has been appointed by President Obama to assist refugees of Iraq war. And did you know that in a nod to the late Russian journalists Anna Politkovskaya (Putin's Russia) and her brave colleagues, President Obama gave an interview in Novaya Gazeta on his recent Moscow visit? More from CPJ. Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) has some post-papal audience questions for Obama (and the activist community). Meanwhile Jarvis Jay Masters' (Finding Freedom) latest, That Bird Has My Wings is available for amazon pre-order.

Okay, so I should probably post a little more often so as not to make this such a huge link dump... but at least I'm caught up!

Rights Readers Round-up

Another of our periodic posts rounding up what's new with Rights Readers authors:

Salman Rushdie has a part in the film version of Midnight's Children
to be directed by Deepa Mehta (Water). More here.

Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families) defends Obama,

Mr. Obama is not suppressing information when he opposes the release of more photographs. After all, he just made public a series of Bush administration torture policy memos that authorize the very methods for inflicting pain and suffering that the Abu Ghraib photographs represent. In fact, it is because of Mr. Obama’s leadership in bringing these dark practices to light that the press and the public — having for too long been passive to the point of complicity on the issue — are now agitating for more sensational imagery. Who are we trying to fool, if not ourselves, if we pretend that we need more photos to know what has been going on?

Amira Hass (Drinking the Sea at Gaza) arrested as she returns from Israel to Gaza. This incident not really getting in the way of her reporting the nitty gritty of life in Gaza.

Did not know that Hector Tobar (The Tattooed Soldier) is an LAT columnist. I think that's where I will go when I need a shot of LA nostalgia, especially columns like this. I miss my raucous neighborhood parrots.

Amulya Malladi (A Breath of Fresh Air) has her own blog.