{"id":5951,"date":"2013-05-16T15:04:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T20:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=5951"},"modified":"2013-05-16T17:07:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T22:07:51","slug":"fictional-travels-to-southern-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2013\/05\/16\/fictional-travels-to-southern-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Fictional Travels to Southern Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2013\/05\/51m4CwmluUL._SY300_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5954\" alt=\"51m4CwmluUL._SY300_\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/files\/2013\/05\/51m4CwmluUL._SY300_.jpg\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>In yesterday\u2019s issue of <i>The Washington Post<\/i>, I review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/White-Dog-Fell-Sky\/dp\/0241145651\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368732581&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=white+dog+fell+from+the+sky\">White Dog Fell from the Sky<\/a>, a new novel about an unlikely friendship between an American expat and a South African refugee (\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/entertainment\/books\/eleanor-morses-white-dog-fell-from-the-sky\/2013\/05\/14\/cc846882-b66f-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html\">Eleanor Morse\u2019s White Dog Fell from the Sky<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>While I liked many parts of Morse\u2019s novel, I gave it a mixed review. I\u2019m really grateful for the story it tells and the issues it raises, but perhaps most of all, for the author\u2019s courage in writing about Botswana and South Africa during apartheid\u2014places and experiences that (at least judging from her online bio) are mostly removed from the places and experiences of her own life. But in my opinion, at times the novel fails to accomplish what it sets out to do: tell the stories of <i>both<\/i> of its characters.<\/p>\n<p>More broadly, I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the courage it takes to write across differences\u2014in this case, race, class, gender, culture, nation, citizenship status, and education. I\u2019ve also been thinking about the perils of this journey\u2014specifically, the way that stereotypes and myths can sometimes surface in the writerly imagination. Even when we are trying to write past them to get to the human truth.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think the answer is to retreat to that old adage, \u201cwrite what you know,\u201d and I don\u2019t think the answer is to clamp down on the imagination. On other hand, I think we need to talk about the power of all the stuff swirling around in our heads\u2014with compassion and understanding, but also with an eye towards how we can create a truly diverse range of truthful, honest, and relevant stories.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In yesterday\u2019s issue of The Washington Post, I review White Dog Fell from the Sky, a new novel about an unlikely friendship between an American expat and a South African refugee (\u201cEleanor Morse\u2019s White Dog Fell from the Sky\u201d). While I liked many parts of Morse\u2019s novel, I gave it a mixed review. I\u2019m really [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1916,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,21961],"tags":[21973,21974,296,21971],"class_list":["post-5951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-women-across-borders","tag-botswana","tag-eleanor-morse","tag-south-africa","tag-white-dog-fell-from-the-sky"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1916"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5951"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5981,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951\/revisions\/5981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}