For November: The Blessing Next to the Wound by Hector Aristizabal

For November, we have selected The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation by our good friend and collaborator Hector Aristizabal:

Hector Aristizabal grew up in the barrios of Medellin, Colombia, where he and his siblings had to use all their wit, wiles, and wherewithal to survive poverty, the ever-present allure of cheap drugs and very dangerous money, and the endemic violence from leftwing guerrillas, rightwing death squads, cocaine cartels, and the armed power of the State. As a young actor and psychology student, Hector was seized by the military, held in secret, and tortured. He survived and went on to find meaning in his ordeal as he channeled his desire for revenge into nonviolent activism both in his homeland and during decades of exile in the United States.

While challenging the State-sponsored causes of much suffering in the world, Hector reached out to some of society s most marginalized at-risk and incarcerated youth, immigrants, and many others using his theatrical skills and psychotherapeutic training to help people shape their own stories and identities. He sought to understand his own identity as well as that of one brother who was a revolutionary and another who was gay and how his belief in personal integrity and political freedom might square with the realities of a country under the yoke of toxic ideologies. Hector was forced finally to examine his own motivations and commitments, and begin to heal his own gaping wounds.

Shockingly honest, heartbreaking, and vibrantly told, The Blessing Next to the Wound is a passionate and evocative memoir that, amid enormous suffering and loss, is a full-throated affirmation of life.

Cut This!

Courtesy of the ACLU of Northern California, timeout for a little PSA aimed at our California readership (though the argument is really applicable in all death penalty states) regarding maintaining the death penalty in a time of budget crisis. You can take action at the ACLU's site:

Cut This: The Death Penalty from aclunc on Vimeo.

Bonus inspirational video from Amnesty-France:

Our August Author: Stieg Larsson (The Girl Who Playes With Fire)

It's our mystery month and this time we chose Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire.  I'm not sure who is behind the site, but for a compendium of Stieg Larsson links, you could start with stieglarsson.com or try this Life of Stieg Larsson interactive feature from the New York Times.  In addition, the NYT offers a couple of useful articles on the backstory of the series, The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson and Pippi Longstocking and Lisbeth Salander.

The Daily Telegraph has an account of Larsson's only interview on the series with some tips for further reading...

Every spring and autumn, back when he worked for the news agency, he was assigned to write reviews that summed up the season’s releases of translated crime fiction. “I’d include the top five crime novels at that particular time,” he said. “Some of the writers I’ve praised are Sara Paretsky, Val McDermid, Elisabeth George and Minette Walters. Strangely enough, almost all are women.”

If you'd like to get a jumpstart on the discussion, check out Slate's Culture Gabfest on Stieg Larsson. Otherwise you can dig in and wrestle with some of the issues the book raises:

Is Lisbeth Salander a feminist icon or male fantasy figure? There's no shortage of opinions. Here's a sampler:  Why we should cheer Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larsson’s girl gang, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: feminist, or not?, Did Stieg Larsson have a problem with women? Feminist or misogynist?
 
How does Larsson's Sweden match up with the reality? Here is a trio of articles to check out: Millenium's distorting mirror, Understanding Swedish society through Stieg Larsson's popular fiction and Foreign Policy's  We're All Swedes Now, 

The sex-trafficking subplot didn't move sufficiently beyond lecture to where it emotionally engaged me, but the NYT's Nick Kristof is hopeful that the books might raise some awareness of the issue.

A tip of the hat to Larsson's English translator, Reg Keeland who has a blog.

Just for fun you can get a peek at the 'Dragon Tattoo' tour of Stockholm.

And finally, don't miss Nora Ephron's Stieg Larsson parody The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut in The New Yorker.

Our July Author: Tracy Kidder (Strength in What Remains)

Strength in What Remains (Random House Reader's Circle)Our July author, Tracy Kidder (Strength in What Remains), has his own website: Tracy Kidder.com, a good place to start.  But readers of this book will probably find it more rewarding to spend some time at Village Health Works which features many videos about the clinic and the people it serves as well as descriptions of the ambitious programs the VHW is undertaking. You can also find VHW on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

There are several good interviews with Tracy Kidder available. You can download the Los Angeles Public Library and CSPAN interviews from iTunes. On Point brings in VHW's executive director Sarah Broom for the second half of the program and Radio Open Source goes deep on genocide and public health here.

Here is a short video excerpt of an interview from PRI's The World:


An Interview with Author Tracy Kidder from Clark Boyd on Vimeo.

Finally, be sure to check out this NYT editorial by Tracy Kidder: A Death in Burundi.

For October: Forest Gate by Peter Akinti

For October we have selected Forest Gate by Peter Akinti:

A profoundly affecting novel that forces the reader to connect, on a very personal level, with the stories behind the headlines, it is a coming-of-age story which finds hope in the midst of modern London’s urban deprivation. Peter Akinti was a seventies child, born of Nigerian ancestry, in London. He read Law at a London University. He has written for the Guardian, and worked for four years at HM Treasury Chambers before founding and editing Untold Magazine for five years. Untold was the first independent British magazine for black men and had a wealth of gifted contributors from all over the diaspora. Peter spent eighteen months in Nigeria, running a restaurant, beer parlour and cinema in Ondo Town, Southwest Nigeria. He currently lives in Brooklyn.  Forest Gate is his first novel.

Our June Author: Frank Huyler

This month we read the novel Right of Thirst by writer-physican Frank Huyler.  This brief audio interview from KUNM radio gives a good explanation of the themes and events that inspired the novel.

In this UCPress interview, Huyler is asked for his views on healthcare reform and puts in a plug for a Rights Readers favorite, W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz.

From New Mexico Magazine:

Q: What unique insights, as a physician, do you bring to your fiction?
A: I don’t know that I bring special insight, but being a doctor often reminds you of the real forces in the world. As a doctor, you’re around dramatic events. You’re seeing people in extreme circumstances. There’s an enormous advantage to seeing that all the time. Being exposed to elemental forces is an advantage. It’s the antithesis of the ivory tower—the dark tower, perhaps. It’s very much the real world

And here's a short video introduction to the book from the author:



Finally, The Guardian has a profile focused on his earlier memoir, The Blood of Strangers, an excerpt of which can be found at LOST Magazine.

Here's a little bonus on the subject of relief workers: a trailer for the film Living in Emergency about Doctor's without Borders.  Now playing Pasadena!

ProSorata

Frank Huyler, author of this month's selection, Right of Thirst, is donating some of the proceeds from his book to an NGO that provides health care to women and children in Bolivia.  I'll give him a chance to tell you about it:





Learn more about ProSorata at their website.  And while you are at it you can check out Amnesty International's campaign for maternal health here.  Don't forget to take action!