Welcome to Litsy!

Actually the title in English is Phenotypes. But this is the author

Is a physical book

I will give 3.5 /5 is a very interesting topic but the paragraphs are way too long. Is difficult to read it

I do that in some books. But pencil and sticky notes. Specially if they are for a reading club. In my ebook I also highlight and take notes some times

#thoughtfulThursday
@MoonWitch94

Not the right title...

Listening to the translator Daniel Hahn speaking about translating a second book by the same author.

Now need to go find Nowhere People...

Is it a difficult book, I ask. No, it's just a book that really affects me, that makes me want to stop everything and make a different story or to tell the story only with my illustrations... A story of my own....Any story that has motherhood in it affects me, she explains. Shouldn't sci-fi stories be light, I ask. No good story is ever light, Federico, No good story leaves out what's dense, what's heavy, she observes...

...the way you wear that slicked-back hair you got... that white shell of yours, that totally fucking access-all areas skin, You're never going to understand what it is to be black, to be a poor fucker getting hassled twenty-four seven on your street, in your neighbourhood, in your city,

You don't know...what it is to be part of the race, getting ideas about being some defender of the cause, you cretin palm-heart opportunist...

Talking about Prince's new album and about the things happening in the world, things that only we can possibly know about, we who are so young and secure in our intelligence and have access to newspapers and magazines that report on what's new.... It's ...not their problem that I can't completely get my head out of the place I've come from, that I can't get rid of the way of seeing things that I learned back home...

The intermediate light tones are, he straightened glasses on his nose, Cream, Marshmallow, Lychee Cocktail, Lemon Sorbet, Light Almond, Fair Skin, Sunbeam, Creme Caramel, Maranhão Sand, Old Straw, Egg Custard, As the medium and darker ones.... Mahogany, Máte Gourd, Semi-Bitter Chocolate, All these names, and you can check for yourselves on the site later can be colours of human skin, Is that really where this commission is headed [?].

And then I felt ready to give at least a partial airing to the ghosts occupying my thoughts, ghosts that had also been those times when I felt uncomfortable being who I was, raised on the idea of being from a black family, an idea that became my identity, but moulded into a phenotype that jarred brutally with that identity, two factors that, when combined, expelled me forever from the generalisations of the game of he's black and he's white...

This was a fabulous read. I love the paragraph-long sentences that capture the thought and speech patterns of the characters so well. Time runs in loops and sometimes you can‘t tell immediately when in the past/present something is happening. But it works so well to build the story of the MC‘s grappling with his identity and his family‘s place in Brazil.

Frederico has a lighter complexion than the rest of his black family, he is treated differently and in many ways privileged, while in others he is a victim of teasing and exclusion, and lives a completely different life than his darker brother Laurenco. Frederico becomes a member of the Brazilian committee, where they are debating about the development of the software that is supposed to determine race/skin color to fulfill the prescribed … 👇

While I like main theme - issues surrounding colourism and racial classification in Brazil, I‘m not impressed with the writing style 🤷🏻‍♀️
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