I can’t quite believe that just last week we were talking about incest and now we are making a sharp turn towards racism and colonialism. Black Shack Alley is one of the stand out novels that I have enjoyed so far in this class. This reading feels a lot more reminiscent of common literary novels […]
Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas tells the story of a young boy, Ernesto, who is of mixed heritage,and how he navigates the complexities of identity, culture, and tradition in rural Peru. This book is set in the Andes, where Ernesto struggles with a clash felt between his indigenous roots and the colonial education he […]
Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog. The book for this week is Black Sheep Alley by Joseph Zobel. The book tells the coming-of-age tale of the author José, a young boy growing up on the island of Martinique, an overseas region of france and former colony. I really enjoyed the read, and found it […]
Black shack alley by Zobel is like any other coming of age novel but, it is in a “post colonial” evolving world. I didn’t like Black Shack Alley as much as the rest of the books we’ve read so far but I believe that is fully just because of my taste in books, not at …
José María Arguedas, Deep Rivers
I enjoyed this week’s reading of Black Shack Alley. I found it fairly easy to follow along yet it was still filled with intricate descriptions and exciting moments. One thing I really liked was how the book set a tone of childhood and youthfulness. I got a good sense of what life is like in […]
Joseph Zobel, Black Shack Alley
“The war isn’t over, my friend. It’s only sleeping.” (p.131) At first, it was refreshing to be reading a book set in the modern-day. Seeing mentions of social media and smartphones was a slight surprise after reading older pieces of literature. However, very quickly, I began to forget what time period it was set in. […]
After reading Black Shack Alley, I really enjoyed this novel. I have read stories with similar themes like colonialism, supremacy, and poverty, but nothing like how the main character reconciles with these themes. At the beginning of the book, the main character is almost sort of naive to the idea of his grandparents and the […]
Zobel’s Black Shack Alley is a fascinating look into the impacts of colonialism throughout childhood in Martinique, and the racialization and trauma that comes with it. It seemed to me while I read that José did not frequently dwell on and confront notions of race, but it was clear that race and struggles with identity pervaded much […]
