Literary LA: Yogita Goyal on the Slave Narrative, Past and Present

By LARB Radio HourNovember 22, 2019

Literary LA: Yogita Goyal on the Slave Narrative, Past and Present
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Yogita Goyal, author of Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery, joins Eric, Medaya, and Kate to discuss the shape of traditional slave narrative and the ways it has been transformed over the past 70 years across the world and in different genres. Goyal talks about what drew her to this subject, and about teaching the slave story in the Trump and Kanye era. She contrasts abolitionist era slave narratives with those from the past five decades, following their return to prominence in African-American literature in the 1970s, bringing together work by Paul Beatty, Colson Whitehead, and Toni Morrison.

Also, Monique Truong, author of The Sweetest Fruits, returns to recommend Chia-Chia Lin's beautiful debut novel, an immigrant narrative set in Alaska, The Unpassing.

This is the third episode in our series on LA and Southern California writers, artists and filmmakers. This episode of the LARB Radio Hour is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov. Any findings, opinions, or conclusions contained herein are not necessarily those of the California Arts Council.

 



 

 

 

 

                                                 

LARB Contributor

The LARB Radio Hour is hosted by Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf.

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