Welcome 📚
What is this about?
The idea behind this newsletter/blog/project is to help you discover under-known/overlooked literary fiction that deserves to be read and loved. It’s designed to serve as a canon of beautifully written, thoughtful books that is an alternative to the standard Western (heteronormative) canon.
What type of literature? 📚
This project especially emphasizes lesbian and translation literature. Most crucially, the project aims to compile the most complete, inclusive list of literary fiction by lesbian ⚢ women authors1. A lot of literature here is historical as well as modern. For the translated works, there are authors and works from around the global. I especially love French and South Asian literature.
Philosophical Underpinnings 📚
The reviews you’ll find here go beyond the book. They include brief biographies and deeper analysis, and account for historical context. Most of the reviews/essays include philosophical and/or social and political commentary, especially of the social justice variety. These do not shy away from difficult subjects such as racism or the frequency of sexual assault. The essays and reviews are also include data, and citations for sources. The internet/social media era discourage nuance and complexity, and the essays and reviews you’ll read here are an attempt to bring them back into our wider discourse.
Civil discourse that is thoughtful, evidence-based, and reasoned if you disagree with my opinion(s) is welcome.
Some authors covered and not covered here 📚
My favorite authors include Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Yasunari Kawabata, Yashpal, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Annie Ernaux, Violette Leduc, and Arundhati Roy. I have strong feelings about others, such as Constance Debré.
Posting style and frequency 📚
I share several reviews and/or essays per week. Each is about four-to-twelve minute read time. I usually write them relatively fast: in one sitting and I do not edit prior to publication, and I’m typo-prone. I occasionally branch out into favorite artists, such as Romaine Brooks, other intellectual pursuits, or tie literature to my life and learnings. I drink a lot of very good tea, mostly aged puerh, and I’ll sometimes include photos my tea and teaware as well as book photos. If you’re curious about a book or tea, feel free to message me.
Paid v Free Subscriptions
I spend a lot of time researching, reading, archiving, and writing this newsletter. It would be a great honor if you do sign up for a paid subscription as a way of showing appreciation.
I have not yet paywalled posts or “content”. However, in the future, I likely will paywall a selection. I haven’t figured it all out yet.
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I include bisexual women authors, eg, Djuna Barnes and Violette Leduc, who have significant relationships with women and/or identify strongly as women-who-love-women in my definition of “lesbian author”. As well, there is a dearth of non-Western lesbian women literature being written and/or published. I’ve written more about how I selected what is lesbian and what is literature here:
