Reviews for The Best of Gowanus: New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean

The average rating for The Best of Gowanus: New Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-08-21 00:00:00 Peter Chiu This was a quick dip into the writings of authors who have been tortured, imprisoned, exiled, censored, and put to death because of their beliefs, relationships, or politics. Most of the situations were within ten years of the publication of this book, so it covers from about 1996-2007 or so. I admit I skimmed a majority of it and only read closely those authors I had a particular interest in, such as Orhan Pamuk, famed Turkish author, and Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote about Putin and Chechnya and was murdered. Putin, as we know, is still a problem, but it feels like we are only now hearing about him because of his activities in Ukraine... she wrote about him from the beginning.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-25 00:00:00 Kenneth Wysowski Loved it. These are stories that we HAVE to hear, that DEMAND being told. It is not an easy read, but this is what I love about literature: its ability to make politics personal, and to transform our abstract conceptions of social conflict into something very real and visceral and relevant. Not only was I moved by every single poem and essay and speech and excerpt, but I also greatly expanded my to-read list because now I want to read more work by many of the authors in this collection (e.g., Chris Abani, Chenjerai Hove, Ken Saro-wiwa, many others) and learn more about the political conflicts and social injustices that they are/were writing about.