I've Been Meaning to Tell You
A Letter To My Daughter
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
'There is, as you pick it up, nothing to prepare you for its power' OBSERVER
'Quite simply, one of the most beautiful books I have ever read' AMINATTA FORNA
How do we navigate our complex histories for our children? What is our duty to share and what must we leave for them to discover? Writing to his daughter, David Chariandy asks difficult, unsettling, perhaps impossible questions – questions made all the more poignant by our current political landscape.
With tender, spare and luminous prose, Chariandy looks both into his heart and mind and out to the world and humanity.
In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, this is a book about race; this is a book about family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Chariandy (Brother) addresses this slim volume to his daughter on the occasion of her 13th birthday, exploring their family's racial and ethnic makeup and the challenges inherent in growing up as a person of color in a white-dominated culture. He weaves together their often similar experiences growing up, recalling his daughter standing up for her brother after he was called the N word at school, alongside his own memories of being underestimated by teachers and taunted by classmates (with whom he empathizes rather than maligning). Alongside this thread is one of resilience and joy. Chariandy recalls the incredible perseverance of his Trinidadian parents, a black woman and an Indian man, who immigrated to Canada in the 1960s and built a beautiful life. He also traces the history of colonialism and forced labor in Trinidad to explore the plight of his ancestors on his father's side and considers the strange dissonance of visiting one's familial country of origin as a tourist. Chariandy hopes for his daughter that she will "demand not only justice, but joy; that you should see... the vulnerability and the creativity and the enduring beauty of others." This is a beautiful meditation on what it means to be among a racial minority, and a blueprint honoring one's heritage.
