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The other day I realized that it’d been more than a year since I dyed my hair. Though I don’t hate how the natural color complements my complexion, I’m going to streak the grey with a Kim Novack blond the minute I land a new commentating gig. (Notice I say when, not if; a positive step.) The whole business makes me think of my mom, Mary who renamed herself Sari. For decades, no matter how cross we were with each other, whenever my roots got too dark, she’d look at me contemplatively and say, “Maybe we should brighten your hair up.” And we would. ‘Radical Hope’ with Carolina de Robertis (Q&A)
An award-winning novelist and literary translator, Carolina de Robertis has donned a new hat for her latest literary effort, that of anthology editor. In the wake of the November 2016 U.S. presidential election, she put out a call for politically inflected love letters in the tradition of James Baldwin’s 1963 The Fire Next Time essay, “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to My Nephew.” The result is Radical Hope, a series of epistolary essays that are bound to shore progressives in the months and years to come. We discussed this remarkable collection with de Robertis, who lives in San Francisco with her wife and children.
LISA ROSMAN: Let’s start with nuts and bolts. Is this book merely a response to the election of Donald Trump?
CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS: It’s not just about the election of Trump because I think it’s important to extend our gaze to something larger and deeper in our country, though he as an individual is certainly his own kettle of dangerous fish.
The idea came to me three days after the election. I was sitting at my writing desk unable to work on my own novel, and I was thinking about how writers might be able to respond and contribute to the dissent and resistance that was going to be necessary in the coming social and political climate. I have a big photograph of Baldwin hanging over my writing desk and I couldn’t stop thinking about that essay in which he addresses his nephew. It seemed to me that his form of letter-essay was particularly helpful for blending personal reflections with sweeping political analysis, a blend we very much need in these times. Continue Reading →
A Utopia of One: Revisiting Thoreau
I grew up outside of Boston, a stone’s throw from Walden Pond. Every summer I prowled through its woods and floated in its shadowy waters; I dated one of its rangers. Because of this, I considered Henry David Thoreau to be a neighbor and a mentor, and his Walden to be a sort of local pamphlet, not unlike a collection of blueberry recipes you might find in a Maine library. It wasn’t until I left home that I grasped the full impact of his screed. Thoreau didn’t just immortalize my neighborhood; he offered an anti-establishment, back-to-nature alternative to the Manifest Destiny mishegos that has run rampant in this country since its inception. Continue Reading →