Reading world literature is one of the best ways to build students’ knowledge and empathy about a particular country or region of the world.  Through the stories of lives in far-flung places, students come to understand the important aspects of life in those areas, and, just as important, come to see that people everywhere share similar goals and ambitions, face similar struggles, wrestle with the same moral dilemmas, and connect to their families and friends in many of the same ways people in the United States do.

For years our 9th grade English course, Coming of Age in the World, has featured novels like The Kite Runner, Persepolis, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, and The House on Mango Street, all of which share perspectives from other parts of the world. English teacher Betsey Coleman revamped this course to have a global literature focus many years ago, and current 9th grade teachers Tom Thorpe and Emily Perez have followed suit. Many elective classes in the English and social studies departments have also gone global, featuring the literature and history of the Middle East, China, Latin America, India, and Haiti, just to name a few.  

This year I am pleased to be offering a new elective based on a recent passion of mine; it’s called Contemporary Voices from Africa, and in this course we will explore some wonderful literature that I know students have not encountered before.  We will be reading the following books, among other literature and articles: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma, a moving family parable set in Nigeria; Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, a series of immigrant stories by Moroccan writer Laila Lalami; and Under the Frangipani Tree by Mozambiquean author and Neustadt award winner Mia Coutu.  Before we get to any of those books, we will start with a short novel called Lost Girl Found, written by two Colorado-based women named Leah Bassoff and Laura DeLuca. This novel tells the story of a young girl’s flight from her small village in southern Sudan during the recent Civil War in that country.  The two authors will be visiting our campus to speak to my students in the elective, as well as to 9th graders in Mrs. Coleman’s classes.  Shortly after, we will welcome Sudanese writer and activist Helen Abyei, whose play Slaves No More documents some of the social and gender-based challenges in her home country, from which she emigrated to Denver several years ago.

In all, I hope this elective will help students appreciate the many different perspectives of this continent, whose artistic, linguistic, cultural, religious, and geographical diversity provide a unique opportunity for exploration.  The great Nigerian author Chinua Achebe perhaps said it best: “The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.”

In the near future I will also be tweeting suggestions for other global titles that I have read and appreciated recently. I hope to spread the word about some books that I believe open our world view in a way that leads to greater understanding. In the meantime, I can heartily recommend an amazing journal called World Literature Today, a beautifully designed publication that comes out every other month. This magazine, based at the University of Oklahoma, features some of the most important work and perspectives from around the globe, mostly in translation. (Go to their website and you will see a featured report on Colorado Academy! http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org.)