For the past few years, I’ve always wanted to read something else. I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I could remember. As a child, I hadn’t given much thought to how I didn’t resemble the descriptions of all my favourite characters.
You could not convince me that me and Princess Mia could not co-exist and be best friends in an alternate universe.
I remember taking my first family holiday to the Caribbean when I was seven years old.
The week before heading to Antigua, I bought a stack of Meg Cabot books to keep me occupied for the 8 hour flight and the next three weeks.
Even as a child, I did not care much for picture books, something I only came to acknowledge slightly later in life. Hefty stacks and tomes interested me far more, mainly because within them lie a chance of a minor character having a trait that I, too, could identify with. Perhaps not physical, but a similarity nonetheless.
I was strongly drawn to the emotions, the dialogue. Pictures, more often than not, should shatter that illusion, whereas subtle descriptors allowed me to fill in my own blanks. So I read and read - The Princess Diaries, of course - and was content for three whole weeks in the sunshine.
Throughout this time, I’d also first encountered the Spanish language as my grandparents lived within earshot of a Spanish-speaking church. I hadn’t understood a word, but I was intrigued by the sounds and cadence, the women in gorgeously decorated white gowns, headwraps and talk of Orishas, Obeah and the like.
Overhearing the sounds and conversations that would echo out into the evenings, I’d imagine my own conversations. Real people would become characters, and I’d slowly begin to pick up a few words and phrases.
I began to formally learn Spanish at university some twelve years later. It was around this time that I began to question my own reading habits. The previous summer, i’d had one of the most - and I’d still say so - inspirational teachers in my English literature class teach me about post-colonial literature and critique. I’d read Chinua Achebe alongside Joseph Conrad and for the first time, felt that I could challenge thoughts and ideas, be heard, and that my opinions on what I read and interpreted would be validated.
I’d arrived to university expecting a continuation, but was met instead with the most beige of reading lists. Aside from a brief mention of Négritude for all of 30 seconds during my Introduction to French Culture, I hadn’t read a single writer of colour throughout my first semester.
The thing about language learning is, so much is taken as a given. The classics, what is considered worth reading, mirrors much of the publishing industry’s output. For many, the disconnect between their own lived experience and the lack of what is available may dissuade them from reading altogether, much less Sartre and Cervantes. In my own childhood, it is arguably that brief spell abroad that allowed me to ask ‘what is the story behind that’ that made me want to learn. Or, most likely, my own seven year old nosiness and curiosity.
Such is the wonderful thing about novels. They’re transformative. For each one I read, the perspective gained by the end is new and fresh and informed everything else henceforth.
Learning two European languages - French and Spanish - knowing what I knew about how these languages were in abundance throughout the Caribbean led me to looking for more works - both original texts and translations - by women and people of colour to sit upon my bookshelves.
I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Since graduating, trying to maintain fluency in both languages is very much still a work in progress. Whether this is the classics, poetry, or prose, each of these stories belongs in pride of place on the bookshelf. In the same way I was put off formal language learning as it didn’t resemble the conversations and sounds of my youth, my own objective is to give voice to anything mildly dissident.
To some capacity, what I've wanted to read and hear has always been off-limits to me. As literature becomes more digital, imagine if someone had asked your seven year old self what they wanted to read, and actually being able to find it. The prospect excites me.
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