As any book lover will testify, literature has a way of bringing people together. Coming together feels apt right now, at the end of our second year battling a pandemic, where millions of people are coming out of the thick of isolation with the help of a COVID vaccine and lifted travel restrictions.

That’s one of the things I think of as I announce our first ever Global Women’s Caucus Feminist Literature Festival, hosted by the Books Abroad feminist reading group.  

It will be a month of celebrating literature—  books, writers we love, and writing itself. 

We will welcome some of the esteemed writers who are members of our Democrats Abroad family, screen a documentary of Toni Morrison’s life, celebrate Octavia Butler, take a webinar on Simone de Beauvoir, host weekly writing drop-ins, and finish off with cocktails and book recommendations. We hope it will be an unforgettable month.

The other thing I think of as I announce this festival is the transformative power of literature. 

I joined Democrats Abroad and became involved with Books Abroad when I was seven months pregnant. It was the month I moved to France. Weeks later France went into its first COVID lockdown. In the next month, I had my son and became a mom for the first time. By the time my son was two months old, Books Abroad founders Connie Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, and Angela Fobbs had already lovingly wrapped their arms around me and recruited me to facilitate our book club meetings and lead the team. 

Being a new mother in a pandemic meant a lot of solitude—  witnessing milestones alone, having next to no childcare, not having family by my side through the hard times of infancy. Anyone will tell you that becoming a mother is a life altering event, but way before I became a mother, the only thing that ever consistently changed my life was literature. In fact, I often joke that every book I read changes my life. Leading Books Abroad as a new mother has been uniquely transformative because it ties together the already intense and transformative experiences of motherhood, reading great literature, and leadership.        

Fall has always felt like a good time to read, as has summer, as has winter...but this fall feels as if there’s no better time to have our first ever Global Women’s Caucus Feminist Lit Fest to celebrate literature and its role in democracy, to let it bring us together, and to honor its transformative power. 

We hope to see you there!

Read a bit more about the Lit Fest below and make sure to RSVP to attend events. All times CET. 

1. “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” film screening: Watch a screening of the seminal documentary of the Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning author, released the year of her death. *Opening Event* (Oct 3, 2:30-5:30pm) 
2. Writing Drop-Ins: Receive a writing prompt, then turn off your screen and write for 30 minutes. Sharing is optional. (Oct 1, 8, 15, and 22, 1-2:30pm)
3. Writers on Writing Series: Angela Fobbs interviews author and media legend Audrey Edwards on her latest work, “American Runaway: Black and Free in Paris in the Trump Years” (Oct 5, 12-2pm)
4. Writers on Writing Series: Journalist Anne Kraatz interviews Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, Muslim feminism expert Carla Power (Oct 6, 7-8:30pm)
5. Simone de Beauvoir Webinar: translaters and scholars Connie Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier present the life and work of the feminist icon (Oct 11, 7-8:30pm) 
6. Octavia Butler Appreciation Evening: Learn about the work of the writer hailed as the mother of the Afro-futurism literary genre. Sci-fi/fantasy lovers, come one, come all! (Oct 14, 7-8:30pm)
7. Writers on Writing: Former New York Times writer Alan Riding interviews author Diane Johnson on her latest work and life in the U.S and France (Oct 20, 7-8:30pm)
8. Books & Cocktails Closing Event - Take on our cocktail recipes and bring your favorite book to recommend in a fun closing night event! (Oct 24, 7-8:30pm)

What better way to celebrate the written word than joining the Feminist Literature Book Club of the Global Women's Caucus for a month-long literary festival!

Literature has always been the hallmark of how people communicate across cultures, beliefs, and generations. In fact, many social movements were initiated by pen and paper, and passed along in meeting halls, carried over oceans, and grown in academic soils. We invite you to celebrate with us: read a book, write a story, and bring your friends and family to join our month-long fest that is sure to inspire and inform! 

For more information and to RSVP Click here

Mattie Nelson. Esther Brown. May Enoch. 

You won’t find these names on any list of notable African Americans. Yet, they are some of the women whose lives scholar Saidiya Hartman excavates in “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments,” The Global Women’s Caucus Books Abroad book choice for Black History Month. 

Why would a book group devoted to feminist literature select a book about women who seem to be, at best, unremarkable; and at worst, societal deviants, misfits, juvenile deliquents? After all, there are so many other books about noteworthy women to read this February in the historic year of the election of the first woman of color as Vice President of the U.S, in the year following the most profound struggle for Black lives in recent times.

Women’s stories are often omitted from history, and where there is a lack of women’s stories there is a dearth of stories about Black women. Where there are stories, the narratives are frequently told by men. Women are either portrayed as minor figures or depicted as larger-than-life, ultra-human titans, to the effect of erasing the full breadth of their humanity. This is not to suggest that the great African American women usually celebrated during Black History Month should not be so honored; however, there are women who were not accomplished in the way we typically define it, yet who were instrumental in shaping American culture. 

Before the second wave feminist movement, which came to define the tenets of feminism most recognizable in the popular imagination, young African American women who migrated from the American South to Philadelphia and New York (among other urban centers, where upwards of 6 million African Americans re-located at the turn of the century) were a part of shaping new ways of imagining American womanhood. Saidiya Hartman calls them wayward. They eschewed social norms and expectations of respectability. They refused domestic labor, they lived with romantic partners (men and women) unmarried, they claimed marriage and gave themselves new names as they saw fit, and they rejected do-gooder white people who tried to “improve” their lives. They dressed as men and had wives. They were radical.

As Sam Huber wrote in The Nation, they ‘inaugurated modernity before Gatsby,’ before blues singers like Bessie Smith were captured on phonograph, and before Alain Locke heralded a “New Negro” in the arts.’ 

Had these women been white men, they would have inspired novels, movies, music.  

History has not completely ignored them all. Gladys Bentley was famous when she was alive, and Edna Thomas was the personal secretary of Madame C.J. Walker. But they have never been written about quite like this.  

There is another reason why this book is so timely. Because the historical accounts are sparse, Hartman uses a genre-defying style to tell the stories. The work is deeply researched -  she makes use of private diary entries, medical records, receipts, and small press journal and newspaper articles, among other sources - but bits of dialogue and narrative have been imagined by Hartman herself. 

Work that recounts history with a different lens has been under heat in recent years, like Nikole Hannah Jones’s 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine. But works like these are more important than ever. If the narrative has erased or undersold stories by and about women, then scholarly, journalistic, and artistic work that seek to undo these omissions are in order. 

Hartman posits that these women lived lives of great imagination and will. Though state- mandated oppression sought to strip them of free will at every turn, their will to live on their own terms is what makes them notable. In a time when social and systemic norms are (thankfully, in some cases) being undone, imagination, defiance, and intuition are tools to re-create the world as we know it are necessary. They are tools women have always used to survive. The relatively unknown African American women centered in “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” knew this. They haven’t been recognized or written about in all of their glory until now. We’re reading. 

Books Abroad Reads: Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Sunday February 21, 2021 @ 2pm CET - 4pm CET

Join us on Sunday Feb 21st at 2pm CET for an engaging discussion of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman.

A unique, genre-bending book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments explores the revolution of Black intimate life in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century by examining the untold history of women who led “wayward” lives and rejected conventionality in response to being denied access to the American Dream.

In response to the amazing energy of our Breakout session at the GWC inauguration event, the women of Books Abroad are pleased to invite you to BOOKS AND COCKTAILS!

In 2020, Books Abroad read four books, curated a Feminist reading list, and hosted discussions with more than 150 participants from three continents. We will continue to cover subjects relevant to women's lives in the personal and political spheres, and choose books that encourage timely conversations on topics related to our lives as compassionate, informed citizens. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out this form or contact [email protected]. To get regular updates, please join the Women's Caucus.